People that stay-up late at night face a greater risk of having diabetes and other illnesses than those who go to bed early, a new study suggests.

The study recently published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism further claims health risks stayed the same even for night owls that got the same amount of sleep as early risers.

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Dr. Nan Hee Kim of Korea University College of Medicine said regardless of the lifestyle, people that stayed up late had a higher risk of developing health problems like diabetes or reduced muscle mass.

The cause of this increased risk, Kim added, is the night owls' tendency to have poorer sleep quality and to take part in unhealthy behaviors like smoking, eating late at night and a sedentary lifestyle.

For the study, researchers analyzed the difference between morning and night chronotypes, or the natural sleep-wake cycle of a person.

They asked 1,620 participants aged between 47 and 59 about their sleep-wake cycle, quality of sleep and habits such as exercising.

Based on the results, 480 participants were categorized as morning chronotypes while 95 participants were evening chronotypes. The remaining participants had a sleep-wake cycle between the two categories.

The evening chronotypes, who tended to be younger, were 1.7 times more likely to have Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, which can lead to diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Night owls were also 3.2 times more likely to have sarcopenia, a condition where the body slowly loses muscle mass compared to morning people.

Among men, night owls were 2.9 times more chances to have diabetes and 3.8 times of sarcopenia.

On the contrary, female night owls had only 2.2 times increased risk of metabolic syndrome.

Considering night owls were mostly younger people, the risk corresponding to this type of sleeping habit is a necessary health issue that must be addressed, Kim said.