Does Sleep Structure Impact Health?

Normal variations in sleep contribute little if anything to metabolic syndrome and related disorders, according to a cross sectional study of 2,162 patients who underwent polysomnography (PSG).

Researchers investigated patients for hypertension, diabetes, overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome, and measured total sleep time, percentage and time spent in slow wave sleep and REM sleep, sleep efficiency, and arousal index.

A univariate analysis found significant associations between sleep structure and metabolic syndrome, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, however, those associations were cancelled out after a multivariate adjustment.

Citation: Haba-Rubio J, Marques-Vidal P, Andries D, et al. Objective sleep structure and cardiovascular risk factors in the general population: The HypnoLaus Study. Sleep. 2015;38(3):391-400. doi: 10.5665/sleep.4496.