No changes in gut microbiota after two-week sleep extension in chronically sleep-deprived individuals

Gut microbiota has been linked to obesity and glucose metabolism. Insufficient sleep is also known to be associated with insulin resistance, and sleep extension was reported to improve glucose metabolism in short sleepers. This study aimed to explore whether sleep extension was associated with changes in gut microbiota and whether there was a relationship with glucose parameters.

We performed a secondary analysis of eight short-seeping but otherwise healthy subjects who participated in a cross over study of two-week home sleep extension and two weeks of habitual sleep. After each sleep condition, stool samples were collected and glucose parameters were obtained. Stool DNA extraction was performed and 16S rRNA was sequenced by MiSeq™. The resulting sequence data were processed to infer relative abundances of taxa present and then analyzed to detect any differences in the abundances of the taxa or overall diversity of the microbiome.

Mean (SD) sleep duration during habitual sleep and sleep extension was 5.58 (0.53) and 6.60 (0.43) hours/night, respectively. Using the Bray-Curtis index, there was no significant dissimilarity of the genus-level microbial community between the two sleeping conditions (ADONIS, R² = 0.017, p = 0.988 and ANOSIM, R = -0.131, p = 0.991). Within-sample microbial diversity (ie, the Shannon index) also did not find significant differences (p = 0.861). There was no significant relationship between per-individual dissimilarity and objective and subjective sleep variables, or glycemic parameters. Only higher sleep efficiency was related to higher abundance of the phyla Tenericutes.

Two-week sleep extension in short sleepers was not associated with changes in gut microbiota.