Top Things to Know: Sleep Duration and Quality Impact on Lifestyle Behaviors and Cardiometabolic Health
Published: September 19, 2016
- According to the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes for Health, approximately 50- 70 million U.S. adults suffer from a sleep disorder and/or report insufficient sleep habitually.
- The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society recommend 7 or more hours of sleep per night for adults “to promote optimal health”. Similarly, Healthy People 2020 has released a series of sleep health goals, including to “increase the proportion of adults who get sufficient sleep”.
- This scientific statement reviews the evidence relating sleep duration and sleep disorders with cardiometabolic risk.
- Both short and long duration sleep and sleep disorders, such as SDB and insomnia, are associated with adverse cardio-metabolic risk profiles and outcomes.
- Several studies have reported an association between habitual short sleep duration and higher body weight compared to those who get sufficient amounts of sleep. Studies of short sleepers have also reported an association with lower diet quality.
- Despite the findings that sleep restriction has a negative impact on energy balance, it is currently unclear whether treating sleep disorders has a positive impact on obesity risk.
- Sleep duration and sleep disordered breathing has been implicated in cardiometabolic risk factors such as insulin resistance and hypertension in some studies. While sleep restriction has been associated with increased insulin resistance in laboratory studies, epidemiological data do not currently support an association between sleep disordered breathing and development of diabetes. However, there are sufficient data to support a causative relationship between sleep disordered breathing and hypertension.
- Sleep may play an important role in health disparities, and may represent a modifiable risk factor (alongside diet and physical activity) for cardio-metabolic risk in general and cardio-metabolic health disparities specifically.
- Further research is needed to elucidate the mechanism between sleep disorders and cardiometabolic health, including longer term follow up and intervention strategies in clinical settings.
- Treating sleep disorders may provide clinical benefits, particularly for elevated blood pressure. Health professionals, as well as the general public, need to be educated reg
Citation
St-Onge M-P, Grandner MA, Brown D, Conroy MB, Jean-Louis G, Coons M, Bhatt DL; on behalf of the American Heart Association Behavior Change, Diabetes, and Nutrition Committees of the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health; Council on Lifelong Congenital Heart Disease and Heart Health in the Young; Council on Clinical Cardiology; and Stroke Council. Sleep duration and quality: impact on lifestyle behaviors and cardiometabolic health: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association [published online ahead of print September 19, 2016]. Circulation. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000444