Sleep and the Metabolic Syndrome

 

ACSM
Off to ACSM this Wed, so drop me a line if you are going to be there!Hope to see some of you there and I will have updates as soon as possible

Another sleep study!
Since we are on the topic of sleep, here is more evidence that sleep may mess up your body. The interesting part is that short and LONG sleep duration seem to have an effect. It will be interesting to see more data on this in the future as it is conflicting on some areas currently (e.g abdominal obesity). There are some other growing data (hahaha, bad attempt at humor) to suggest that lack of sleep interferes with insulin sensitivity which could promote a growing waistline! (REF). In the meantime, your mom was right once again that you need your sleep!

Take Away
Short sleep duration compared with 7 to 8 hours of sleep is associated with greater risk for metabolic syndrome and metabolic syndrome criteria of abdominal obesity, elevated glucose, and elevated triglycerides, but not BP and HDL cholesterol.

Long sleep duration compared with reference criteria is associated with increased risk for metabolic syndrome and abdominal obesity but not with increased glucose, triglyceride level, BP, or low HDL cholesterol level.

Self-Reported Sleep Duration is Associated with the Metabolic Syndrome in Midlife Adults

Conclusion: “These data suggest that sleep duration is a significant correlate of the metabolic syndrome. Additional studies are needed to evaluate temporal relationships among these measures, the behavioral and physiologic mechanisms that link the two, and their impact on subsequent cardiometabolic disease.”

From Medscape

May 21, 2008 — Risk for metabolic syndrome was associated with sleep duration, according to the results of a cross-sectional community-based cohort study reported in the May issue of Sleep.

“Short and long sleep duration have been linked to various risk factors for cardiovascular disease,” write Martica H. Hall, PhD, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania, and colleagues. “In the present study, we evaluated the relationship between sleep duration and presence of the metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of physiologically interrelated risk factors for cardiometabolic disease.”

In the Adult Health and Behavior Project registry, 1214 participants aged 30 to 54 years were divided into 4 groups on the basis of their reported sleep duration. American Heart Association/National Heart Lung and Blood Institute criteria were used to define the metabolic syndrome. The hypothesis that sleep duration significantly correlates with the metabolic syndrome and its components was tested with logistic regression.

The rate of observed metabolic syndrome was 22%, similar to that of published health statistics for US adults. Adjusted odds for metabolic syndrome were increased 45% in both short and long sleepers vs those sleeping 7 to 8 hours per night. Sleep duration was also associated with individual components of the metabolic syndrome (abdominal obesity, elevated fasting glucose, and hypertriglyceridemia). However, after further adjustment for use of antihypertensive medication, prevalence of the metabolic syndrome and its components remained increased only in short-duration sleepers.

“These data suggest that sleep duration is a significant correlate of the metabolic syndrome,” the study authors write. “Additional studies are needed to evaluate temporal relationships among these measures, the behavioral and physiologic mechanisms that link the two, and their impact on subsequent cardiometabolic disease.”

Limitations of this study include possibly insufficient power to evaluate relationships between sleep duration and the blood pressure component of the metabolic syndrome, as well as the use of cross-sectional data, which cannot address questions of causality.

“Additional experimental and prospective observational studies are needed to evaluate the extent to which sleep duration affects, or is affected by, the metabolic syndrome, abdominal obesity, glucose and lipid metabolism, and blood pressure,” the study authors conclude. “Although the present study evaluated a community sample of healthy adults, relationships between sleep and the metabolic syndrome might differ in important ways in other populations. Finally, identification of the proximal behavioral and biologic pathways by which sleep affects components of the metabolic syndrome is essential to developing treatment strategies to augment behavioral and pharmacologic interventions for cardiometabolic disease.

The National Institutes of Health supported this study. Two of the authors have disclosed various financial relationships with Pro Consulting, Actelion, Arena, Cephalon, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Neurocrine, Neurogen, Pfizer, Respironics, Sanofi-Aventis, Sepracor, Servier, Stress Eraser, and Takeda.

Source: Sleep. 2008;31:635-643 and Medscape

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