Does curcumin have an effect on sleep duration in metabolic syndrome patients?

Sleep-duration is related to obesity. Curcumin can affect behavioral changes that arise from sleep deprivation in animal models. In this study, we assessed the effects of curcumin on sleep-duration in metabolic-syndrome (MetS) patients.

This study was a double-blind clinical trial in 120 adults with MetS. All participants received crude curcuminoids in a simple formulation (n=40), phospholipidated curcuminoids (n=40) or placebo (n=40) 1 g/day during 6 weeks. Demographic data, anthropometric indices and serum biochemical factors were documented for all volunteers at baseline and after the intervention. A standard questionnaire was used for evaluating physical-activity-level (PAL) and patients' sleep-duration, including night time sleep and daily napping. Based on the time of sleep, sleeping hours were classified into: night time sleep; daily naps and total sleeping hours in 24 hours.

A total of 120 participants aged 38.72±10.05 years old were enrolled into the study. We did not find significant differences in biochemical factors, sleep-duration or PAL at baseline among the 3 groups (p>0·05). Moreover, curcumin did not exert any significant effect on sleep-duration before, or after, adjustment for confounding factors in the overweight and obese individuals, or in total population (p>0.05).

The results showed that curcumin does not have an effect on sleep-duration in subject with MetS.