Short sleep duration associated with a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome in an apparently healthy population

doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2012.07.013

Preventive Medicine

Volume 55, Issue 4, October 2012, Pages 305-309

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2012.07.013 Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To examine the association between sleep duration and metabolic syndrome in an apparently healthy Chinese population.

Method

The baseline data were collected from a health examination center in Tainan, Taiwan, from October 1, 2006, to August 31, 2009. A total of 7100 adults were recruited. Subjects were classified into three groups according to their sleep duration: short (< 6 h), normal (6–8 h), and long sleepers (> 8 h).

Results

There were significant differences in age, gender, education level, fasting plasma glucose, and the proportion of smoking status and exercise frequency among different sleep groups. Based on multiple logistic regression, short sleepers were positively associated with metabolic syndrome (OR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.01–1.63) in males but not in females (OR = 1.04, 95% CI: 0.72–1.51). Long sleepers were not related with metabolic syndrome in both genders. Short sleep duration was independently related to hyperglycemia (OR = 1.39, 95% CI: 1.10–1.74) also in males only. Other components such as hypertriglyceridemia, low high density lipoprotein cholesterol, high blood pressure and central obesity were not associated with short sleep duration.

Conclusion

Males with short sleep duration are positively associated with metabolic syndrome and they also exhibited a higher prevalence of hyperglycemia.

Highlights

► The association of sleep duration with metabolic syndrome was examined in adults. ► Short sleep duration is positively associated with metabolic syndrome in males. ► Males with short sleep duration exhibited a higher prevalence of hyperglycemia.

Introduction

Chronic sleep deprivation is increasingly common in modern society (Bonnet and Arand, 1995). U-shaped pattern have been observed for the relationships between sleep duration and all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and increased body mass index (Buxton and Marcelli, 2010, Alvarez et al., 2004). Furthermore, both short and long sleep duration are associated with pre-diabetes (Chaput et al., 2009), a lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol level and a higher triglyceride level (Kaneita et al., 2008).

Metabolic syndrome, a clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors, including central obesity, insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, elevated blood pressure, and dyslipidemia, remains a critical public health problem because of its increasing prevalence rate and the fact that it increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality (Klein et al., 2002, Wu et al., 2010). From a physiological perspective, sleep is intricately connected to various hormonal and metabolic processes in the body (Sharma and Kavuru, 2010). Although sleep duration has been suggested to be associated with metabolic syndrome (Hall et al., 2008, Choi et al., 2008), the above studies included subjects with cerebral vascular event, coronary artery disease, thyroid dysfunction, and those using antihypertensives and hypoglycemic agents, and thus the results may overestimate the association between sleep duration and metabolic syndrome. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the association between sleep duration and metabolic syndrome in a population without cardiovascular disease, such as coronary artery disease and cerebral vascular event, and medication known to influence blood pressure, glucose tolerance and lipid profiles.

Section snippets

Subjects

The baseline data were collected from a health examination center in National Cheng Kung University Hospital in Tainan, Taiwan, from Oct 1, 2006, to Aug 31, 2009, on the basis of secondary data without personal identification information. The Ethical Committee for Human Research at the National Cheng Kung University Hospital approved the study protocol. All subjects received a health checkup and completed a structured questionnaire, which included demographic information, medical history,

Results

Table 1 shows the comparisons of clinical characteristics among subjects with different sleep durations. There were significant differences in age, gender, education level, fasting plasma glucose, and the proportion of smoking status and exercise frequency among these three groups. Longer sleepers were younger than normal sleepers, but short sleepers were older.

A comparison of the prevalence of the components and the number of metabolic abnormalities among subjects with different sleep

Discussion

Our study provides the epidemiological evidence that short sleep duration is associated with metabolic syndrome after adjustments for the potential confounding factors of age, education level, BMI and lifestyle in a Chinese male population from Taiwan. According to reports in Asian countries, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome revealed a gender difference that men have a higher rate of metabolic syndrome than women (Hwang et al., 2007, Wu et al., 2009). Therefore, we performed a

Conclusions

Short sleep duration is an important factor positively associated with metabolic syndrome in male subjects, and short sleepers exhibited a higher prevalence of hyperglycemia also in males groups. Therefore, the promotion of lifestyle modification to obtain adequate sleep and to avoid habitual sleep deprivation could potentially serve as a primary preventive measure against the development of metabolic syndrome in male population.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the grants from the Department of Family Medicine, National Cheng-Kung University Hospital (NCKUHFM-100-002). MC Wu participated in study conception and design, statistical analyses, research data interpretation, drafting and revision of the manuscript. YC Yang participated in study conception and design, statistical analyses and revision of the manuscript. CJ Chang and JS Wu participated in study conception and design, research data interpretation and revision of

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¹: JS Wu and CJ Chang contributed equally to this work.

View full text

Short sleep duration associated with a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome in an apparently healthy population

Abstract

Objective

Method

Results

Conclusion

Highlights

Introduction

Section snippets

Subjects

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

Conflict of interest statement

Acknowledgments

Soc. Sci. Med.

Sleep Med.

Sleep Med. Rev.

Ann. Epidemiol.

Sleep Med.

Sleep Med.

Lancet

Sleep Med.

The impact of daily sleep duration on health: a review of the literature

Prog. Cardiovasc. Nurs.

We are chronically sleep deprived

Sleep

Sleep restriction for 1 week reduces insulin sensitivity in healthy men

Diabetes

Association between short sleep duration and high incidence of metabolic syndrome in midlife women

Tohoku J. Exp. Med.

Relationship between sleep duration and the metabolic syndrome: Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey 2001

Int. J. Obes.

The metabolic syndrome

Endocr. Rev.

Patterns of alcohol consumption and the metabolic syndrome

J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab.

Self-reported sleep duration is associated with the metabolic syndrome in midlife adults

Sleep