Study links irregular sleep patterns to metabolic disorders

A new study has found that not sticking to a regular bedtime and wakeup schedule — and getting different amounts of sleep each night — can put a person at higher risk for obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension, high blood sugar and other metabolic disorders.

Study links irregular sleep patterns to metabolic disorders. Photo: Kinga Cichewicz/Unsplash

In fact, for every hour of variability in time to bed and time asleep, a person may have up to a 27% greater chance of experiencing a metabolic abnormality.

“Many previous studies have shown the link between insufficient sleep and higher risk of obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic disorders,” said study author Tianyi Huang, Sc.D., epidemiologist of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. “But we didn’t know much about the impact of irregular sleep, high day-to-day variability in sleep duration and timing. Our research shows that, even after considering the amount of sleep a person gets and other lifestyle factors, every one-hour night-to-night difference in the time to bed or the duration of a night’s sleep multiplies the adverse metabolic effect.”

The researchers’ hypothesis that there were, in fact, such associations, proved correct. Individuals with greater variations in their bedtimes and in the hours they slept had a higher prevalence of metabolic problems, and these associations persisted after adjusting for average sleep duration. This was also the case when they looked at the participants who developed metabolic disorders during the 6.3 years of follow up.

The prospective results showed that the variations in sleep duration and bedtimes preceded the development of metabolic dysfunction. According to the authors, this provides some evidence supporting a causal link between irregular sleep and metabolic dysfunction.

Participants whose sleep duration varied more than one hour were more likely to be African-Americans, work non-day shift schedules, smoke, and have shorter sleep duration. They also had higher depressive symptoms, total caloric intake, and index of sleep apnea.

Increasing sleep duration or bedtime variability was strongly associated with multiple metabolic and simultaneous problems such as lower HDL cholesterol and higher waist circumference, blood pressure, total triglycerides, and fasting glucose.

“Our results suggest that maintaining a regular sleep schedule has beneficial metabolic effects,” said study coauthor Susan Redline, M.D., senior physician in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “This message may enrich current prevention strategies for metabolic disease that primarily focus on promoting sufficient sleep and other healthy lifestyles.”

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Researchers have found a link between allergen in red meat and heart disease

A team of researchers says it has linked sensitivity to an allergen in red meat to the buildup of plaque in the arteries of the heart.

Restoring microbes in infants born by cesarean section

Exposing babies delivered by C-section to fluids from the mother’s birth canal enriched the babies’ microbes to levels more typical of babies born vaginally.

Brazil scientists discover Zika virus inhibitor

Scientists from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) in Pernambuco discovered a substance that can block Zika virus. However, years of study are still necessary before the 6-methylmercaptopurine riboside (6MMPr) can be turned into a medicine and be produced in large scale.

Children’s visual engagement is heritable and altered in autism

How children visually engage with others in social situations is a heritable behavior that is altered in children with autism.

New Way Discovered for Protecting against High-Dose Radiation Damage

A new discovery might be useful to protect healthy intestinal cells from radiation damage from Radiotherapy.

Study finds genetic link for rare intestinal cancer

Heredity accounts for up to 35 percent of small intestinal carcinoid, a rare digestive cancer. The researchers examined families with a history of the disease. Because the disease has long been considered randomly occurring rather than inherited, people with a family history are not typically screened.