Gastrointestinal symptoms in office workers are predicted by psychological distress and short sleep duration

Gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms can be triggered by several lifestyle factors, including psychological distress, short sleep duration, and diet. It is poorly known which physiological mechanisms are involved, but the autonomic nervous system (as a key mediator of the stress response) is a likely candidate. We aimed to investigate the associations between selected lifestyle factors, measures of stress physiology, and GI symptoms.

This is a longitudinal study of 1002 office employees (52% male, mean age 39 ± 10 years), who were asked to report their GI symptoms, psychological distress, sleep times, and intake of caffeine, alcohol, and soft drinks for 5 days. Skin conductance, heart rate / variability, and acceleration were automatically recorded using wearable sensors. 850 participants from this study were eligible for analysis. We computed within-person correlations between the variables and used mediation analysis to test causal models.

Sleep duration (ρ = -0.12, p < 0.001) and psychological distress (ρ = 0.19, p < 0.001) were significantly though weakly associated with GI symptoms. The physiological variables were not or weakly associated with GI symptoms in this study. The association between sleep duration and GI symptoms was largely mediated by psychological distress (61%).

Short sleep and psychological distress predict GI symptoms in office workers. Further research is needed to unravel the physiological mechanisms mediate this association.