Short Sleep Duration Is Weakly Associated with Carotid Intima-Media Thickness in Adolescents

To investigate the relationship between sleep duration and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in adolescents. We hypothesized that short sleep duration was associated with an increased CIMT.

This was a cross-sectional study. Healthy participants aged 10-18 years were recruited from a school-based cohort established to examine the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in Hong Kong. All participants completed a prospective 7-day sleep diary, underwent anthropometric measurements, overnight polysomnography, and CIMT assessment. Overweight participants or those with an obstructive apnea hypopnea index of ≥5 were excluded from analysis. Regression analysis was used to assess the association between CIMT and sleep duration and other possible correlates.

One hundred forty-two participants completed the assessments. Male participants tended to have shorter sleep duration than females (P = .012). There were no differences in age, body mass index, Tanner developmental stage, or parental history of hypertension between groups of different sleep durations. There was a weak but significant association between short sleep duration and CIMT (r = -0.273; P < .001).

Sleep duration was found to have a weakly negative association with CIMT. Further research is needed to determine whether adult adverse cardiovascular events may originate in childhood owing to short sleep duration.