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Habitual Sleep Duration, Daytime Napping, and Dietary Intake: A Mendelian Randomization Study
Kaitlyn Alimenti1, Angela Chen1, Richa Saxena1
1Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Current Developments in Nutrition
|June 7, 2021
Summary
Longer sleep duration showed a modest association with increased salad and vegetable intake. However, daytime napping did not significantly impact diet, suggesting limited influence of sleep patterns on dietary habits.
Area of Science:
- Nutritional Epidemiology
- Sleep Science
- Genetic Epidemiology
Background:
- Chronic insufficient sleep and frequent napping are linked to adverse health outcomes like weight gain and disease.
- Diet quality may play a role in the relationship between sleep and health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate potential causal relationships between genetically predicted sleep duration/napping and dietary intake.
- To examine bidirectional links between sleep patterns and macronutrient composition.
Main Methods:
- Utilized genetic variants associated with sleep duration and napping from genome-wide association studies.
- Analyzed 61 dietary variables from UK Biobank participants (n=361,194) using two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR).
- Assessed bidirectional associations with macronutrient intake using inverse-variance weighted (IVW) analysis.
Main Results:
- Genetically predicted longer sleep duration was associated with increased intake of salads/raw vegetables and no major dietary changes.
- No significant associations were found between daytime napping and dietary variables.
- No bidirectional causal links were observed between sleep duration/napping and macronutrient composition.
Conclusions:
- Modest evidence suggests a link between habitual sleep duration and dietary intake, specifically increased vegetable consumption.
- No evidence supports an association between daytime napping frequency and dietary intake.
- Findings indicate that sleep duration and napping frequency may have limited effects on long-term dietary patterns.
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