STUDY OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the association between objective sleep measures and metabolic syndrome (MS), hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional study.
SETTING: General population sample.
PARTICIPANTS: There were 2,162 patients (51.2% women, mean age 58.4 ± 11.1).
INTERVENTIONS: Patients were evaluated for hypertension, diabetes, overweight/obesity, and MS, and underwent a full polysomnography (PSG).
MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: PSG measured variables included: total sleep time (TST), percentage and time spent in slow wave sleep (SWS) and in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, sleep efficiency and arousal index (ArI). In univariate analyses, MS was associated with decreased TST, SWS, REM sleep, and sleep efficiency, and increased ArI. After adjustment for age, sex, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, drugs that affect sleep and depression, the ArI remained significantly higher, but the difference disappeared in patients without significant sleep disordered breathing (SDB). Differences in sleep structure were also found according to the presence or absence of hypertension, diabetes, and overweight/obesity in univariate analysis. However, these differences were attenuated after multivariate adjustment and after excluding subjects with significant SDB.
CONCLUSIONS: In this population-based sample we found significant associations between sleep structure and MS, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. However, these associations were cancelled after multivariate adjustment. We conclude that normal variations in sleep contribute little if any to MS and associated disorders.