Short sleep duration may lead to central obesity, weight gain for Chinese adults
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Weight gain of 5 kg or more and central obesity are more likely to manifest among Chinese adults who sleep 6 hours or less per night vs. those who get more sleep, according to findings published in Obesity.
“The potential link of sleep duration with obesity has been explored for years,” Canqing Yu, PhD, of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Peking University School of Public Health in Beijing, and colleagues wrote. “However, large prospective studies conducted in the Chinese population have been lacking.”
Yu and colleagues compared BMI and waist circumference changes across an average follow-up of 8 years among 21,958 Chinese adults aged 30 to 79 years using data from the China Kadoorie Biobank. Average nightly sleep duration was self-reported at baseline and at the end of the follow-up period.
Among the cohort, 4,559 participants (63% women) reported sleeping 6 hours or less on average per night, 5,357 (61.4% women) slept 7 hours, 8,155 (61.7% women) slept 8 hours and 3,887 (64.2% women) slept 9 hours or more on average per night.
An increase of 5 kg or more in body weight, which the researchers defined as “gaining weight significantly,” was observed for 14.4% of the cohort. A BMI of 28 kg/m2 was the cutoff to determine general obesity, and this was reached by 5.5% of the cohort. A waist circumference of at least 90 cm in men and at least 80 cm in women equated to central obesity, and this was reached by 24.6% of the cohort, according to the researchers.
It was 1.15 times more likely that participants who averaged 6 hours or fewer of sleep per night would gain 5 kg or more in body weight vs. participants who averaged 7 hours of sleep (OR = 1.15; 95% CI, 1.02-1.29). In addition, it was 1.34 times more likely that participants who averaged 6 hours or fewer of sleep and logged fewer than 12.6 metabolic equivalent task hours per day, whom the researchers categorized as “relatively physically inactive,” would gain 5 kg or more vs. participants with similar activity levels who averaged 7 hours of sleep (OR = 1.34; 95% CI, 1.07-1.67).
It was 1.13 times more likely that central obesity would occur in participants who averaged 6 hours or fewer of sleep per night vs. those who averaged 7 hours of sleep per night (OR = 1.13; 95% CI, 1-1.28). The researchers wrote that general obesity risk did not seem to be affected, “which suggested that the weight gain is more likely to accumulate on the abdomen rather than whole body.”
“Given the trend of sleeping less in the modern society and the high prevalence of central obesity in the Chinese population, the link of sleep with obesity needs to be recognized, and importance of sleep intervention in the context of weight management needs to be underscored,” the researchers wrote. – by Phil Neuffer
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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