The Effect of Short Sleep Duration on the Development of Asthma

Asthma is regarded as a heterogeneous disease with chronic airway inflammation and reversible airway limitation. Asthma itself and recurrent attacks of asthma can decrease sleep duration and increase the prevalence of short sleep duration. Systemic low-grade inflammation and obesity caused by short sleep duration have been known for a long time, which potentially affect the development of asthma. It would be interesting to study the interaction between short sleep duration and asthma. However, there are relatively few studies and no review about the association between short sleep duration and asthma. This article performed a review about the relationships between short sleep duration and asthmatic phenotype, laboratory tests, comorbidity, and clinical outcomes. Pooled studies about short sleep duration and asthma provided following four results: (1) compared with healthy sleep duration, short sleep duration seemingly increased the risk of central obesity in asthmatics; (2) short sleep duration potentially reduced the level of FeNO and increased lung function impairment in patients with asthma; (3) asthmatic comorbidities, mainly obesity and depression, were negatively associated with short sleep duration among asthmatics; (4) short sleep duration potentially increased the risks of asthma-related hospitalization and emergency care. However, almost all studies are based on subjective but not objective sleep duration. In addition, the study on sleep duration and cause-specific mortality in patients with asthma is relatively scant. Considering the effect of short sleep duration on the development of asthma, we recommend that periodic sleep monitoring for asthmatic management is very necessary.