In a recent study published in the journal Nutrients , US researchers analyzed the relationship between diet quality and various sleep outcomes in the Bogalusa Heart Study (BHS).
To learn. Characteristics of diet and sleep quality in middle age. Learn in the heart of Bogalusa. Image credit: Prostock-studio / Shutterstock.com
Background:
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States, and one person dies of HIV every 34 seconds in this country. Currently, approximately 122 million adults in the United States are living with cardiovascular disease, so identifying the risk factors associated with this disease is important to reducing its incidence.
Certain lifestyle risk factors, such as diet and sleep, can be modified to reduce the risk of CVD. In fact, a balanced diet has been shown to prevent cardiovascular disease, while sleep apnea and insomnia have been repeatedly linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Research has primarily focused on the relationship between these activities and health outcomes; Therefore, information on the interaction between nutrition and sleep is limited.
Short-term studies support the idea that food and sleep are cyclical, with food intake affecting the next day and food affecting sleep via metabolic pathways. In fact, a high-quality diet is known to be associated with better sleep.
However, many of these studies included non-diverse groups, such as only men and women and only Mediterranean diets. Another common limitation of these studies is that most of them assessed only one sleep parameter, such as sleep duration, with one measure of diet quality.
on learning
In the current cross-sectional study, researchers examined the relationship between diet quality and various sleep outcomes such as sleep apnea, healthy sleep patterns, and insomnia in a BHS cohort of white and black adults of both sexes. The researchers also looked at whether the effects differed by socioeconomic status, race, and gender.
The study group consisted of people who participated in the BHS study between 2013 and 2016 and completed sleep and diet assessment questionnaires. The Lower Mississippi Delta Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative (Delta NIRI) Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) was used to assess dietary intake. For six months, participants were reminded of four one-day diets.
The team compared NIRI delta components with data from the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Pattern Equivalent Database (FPED) published between 2015 and 2016 . The Nutrition Research Database was used to assess dietary intake. Healthy Eating Index (HEI) 2015, Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) 2010, and Alternative Mediterranean Diet (aMed) were used to design the diets.
The Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale (WHIIRS) was used to assess insomnia, the Berlin Questionnaire for snoring and sleep apnea, and the Sleep Index for general sleep health for healthy sleep. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was used to assess physical activity and total metabolic equivalent work (MET) was determined in minutes per week. The Center for Epidemiological Studies in Depression (CESD) scale assessed depressive symptoms.
Multivariate Poisson regression modeling was performed using generalized estimating equations (GEE) to estimate prevalence ratios (PRRs). Models were adjusted for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), race, physical activity, education level, employment status, caffeine consumption, depressive symptoms, having bed partners, and frequent use of sleeping pills.
Data were also adjusted for household size, index of extreme concentration (ICE), children in the household, census retail food environment indices (mRFEI), smoking habits, and alcohol and illicit drug use.
search results
Of the 1,298 subjects, 224 had a caloric deficit of more than 4,800 kcal/day, 43 had stroke or heart attack, 123 had shift work, 7 had sleep or diet, and 77 had no data on shift. analysis... As a result, 824 people were included in the final selection group.
The average age of the participants was 48, 30% were black, 36% were male, about 30% had depression, and more than 50% were obese. Among the participants, the risk of insomnia and sleep apnea increased in 44%, and 23% of the participants slept well.
The average ACHEI-2010 score is 45. Higher AHEI-2010 quintiles are more common among older people, women, people with more education, people who have never smoked, heavy drinkers, and people who are not depressed.
A higher nutritional value, as determined by the AHEI 2010 score, was associated with a reduced risk of sleep apnea after adjustment. HEI 2015 found no significant association between aMed, insomnia symptoms or good sleep scores.
AHEI-2010 and HEI-2015 were inversely associated with increased risk of sleep apnea. People in the 5th quartile of the AHEI-2010 were 41% less likely to have a high risk of sleep apnea than those in the 1st quartile. Analysis of AHEI-2010 as a continuous variable showed that for every 10-point increase in AHEI-2010, the correlation was significant with a 12% decrease in the prevalence of severe sleep apnea.
Higher AHEI-2010 was associated with positive sleep scores, but not with the snoring component. In unadjusted models, researchers found a modest association between healthy sleep patterns and AHEI-2010.
The association between AHEI-2010 and the risk of sleep apnea was greater in women than in men. Note that this association was stronger among people with a higher level of education.
Fruit, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, sugary drinks, red and processed meat, and alcohol had significant inverse associations when comparing Q1 to Q5. A sensitivity analysis performed excluding BMI as covariates yielded similar results.
The result
Higher dietary intake is associated with reduced sleep apnea in a low-income, semi-rural population in the southeastern United States, where health disparities are common. These findings demonstrate how diet quality affects sleep and thus support the inclusion of high-quality foods in health interventions that may improve the effectiveness of sleep treatments by reducing cardiovascular disease risk.
Link to the magazine.
- Potts, KS, Wallace, ME, Gustat, J., et al. (2023). Characteristics of diet and sleep quality in middle age. A study of the heart of Bogalus. nutrition doi: 10.3390/nu15092078