Urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations and adolescent sleep duration

Some environmental chemicals, such as phthalates, are capable of disrupting endocrine function related to the development and regulation of sleep patterns. However, the contribution of phthalate exposure to inadequate sleep during adolescence is unknown. We aim to evaluate the association between phthalate exposure and short sleep duration during adolescence.

We used data from participants 16-17 years of age in the 2005-2010 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants reported typical sleep duration during weekdays, which we categorized into short sleep duration (less than 8 hours per night) and adequate sleep duration (8 or more hours) based on consensus guidelines. We used weighted logistic regression to evaluate the association between log₁₀-transformed urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations and odds of short sleep duration.

An interquartile range increase in di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate metabolites, monocarboxynonyl phthalate, monocarboxyoctyl phthalate, and mono-isobutyl phthalate was associated with 1.48 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] = 1.02, 2.16), 1.64 (95% CI = 1.17, 2.32), 1.46 (95% CI = 0.99, 2.16), and 1.92 (95% CI = 1.08, 3.43) times the odds of short sleep duration, respectively. Furthermore, we observed monotonic dose-response relations between some phthalate metabolites and odds of short sleep duration.

Our results suggest that higher urinary concentrations of several phthalate metabolites are associated with short sleep duration during adolescence. Understanding the contribution of modifiable environmental factors to inadequate sleep duration is of great public health importance because inadequate sleep can have substantial health implications.