TOPLINE:
suggests an analysis of a Dutch study.
METHODOLOGY:
- Data on 5,561 participants aged 40–75 years from The Maastricht Study who completed the baseline survey between November 2010 and January 2018 and had full data available were included.
- Sleep duration was assessed as the in-bed time in minutes, using a median of 7 nights’ data from an activPAL3 (PAL Technologies) accelerometer, which is worn on the thigh.
- Glucose metabolism was determined via an oral glucose tolerance test and categorized as prediabetes or type 2 diabetes in line with World Health Organization diagnostic criteria.
- The association between sleep duration and type 2 diabetes was assessed on multivariate logistic regression analysis, taking into account a range of potential confounding factors.
TAKEAWAY:
- The mean age of the participants was 60.1 years, and there was an even split between men and women. In all, 832 had prediabetes and 1,341 type 2 diabetes, and the mean sleep duration was 8.3 hours.
- The results indicated there was a U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and type 2 diabetes, so that both long and short sleep durations increased the risk.
- In the fully adjusted model, a sleep duration of 5 hours was associated with an odds ratio for type 2 diabetes versus 8 hours sleep of 2.9. For a sleep duration of 12 hours, the odds ratio was 1.8.
- The association between sleep duration and diabetes was not significant.
IN PRACTICE:
The results “support the idea that sleep duration could be a relevant risk factor for type 2 diabetes independent of lifestyle risk factors, including diet, physical activity, smoking behavior, and alcohol consumption,” wrote the authors.
“These findings underpin the importance of promoting healthy sleep habits to avoid sleep deprivation,” they added.
STUDY DETAILS:
The research was led by Jeroen D. Albers, MSc, department of social medicine, Maastricht (the Netherlands) University, and published in Sleep Health. It is an analysis of The Maastricht Study.
LIMITATIONS:
The study is limited by its cross-sectional nature, particularly because there are “plausible causal paths between sleep duration and type 2 in both directions,” the authors note. The accelerometer used in the study also cannot reliably distinguish between waking and sleeping time in bed, with the potential for misclassification. Daytime naps were also not included, and long-term changes sleep patterns were not measured. In addition, it was not possible to control for some potential confounding factors.
DISCLOSURES:
The Maastricht Study was supported by the European Regional Development Fund via OP-Zuid, the Province of Limburg, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Stichting De Weijerhorst, the Pearl String Initiative Diabetes, the School for Cardiovascular Diseases, the School for Public Health and Primary Care, the School for Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Stichting Annadal, Health Foundation Limburg, and unrestricted grants from Janssen-Cilag, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi Aventis Netherlands. One author declares a relationship with Novo Nordisk outside the submitted work. No other relevant financial relationships were declared.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.