Association of sleep duration and prevalence of sarcopenia: A large cross-sectional study

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between sleep duration and risk of sarcopenia in in general U.S. population.

Utilizing publicly available data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey spanning from 2011 to 2014, we explored the association between sleep duration and prevalence of sarcopenia. To investigate their relationship, we conducted weighted multivariate logistic regression analysis, restricted cubic splines (RCS) curve, and subgroup analysis.

The study included 8,200 individuals, among whom 99 (0.9 %) had sarcopenia. The RCS curve revealed a U-shaped association of sarcopenia with sleep duration (P for nonlinearity = 0.020), showing that the risk of sarcopenia decreases with increasing sleep duration, reaching the lowest risk around 6.67 h. After controlling for underlying cofounders, compared to individuals with sleep duration < 5 h, the odds ratios with 95 % confidence intervals of sarcopenia were 0.64 (0.27, 1.49), 0.50 (0.20, 1.26), 0.65 (0.27, 1.60), and 2.31 (0.73, 7.30) for < 5-6, 6.5-7.5, 8-9, and > 9 h group. The U-shaped association between sleep time and prevalence of sarcopenia also was observed in the subjects who aged < 40 or ≥ 40 years, were male or female, with or without hypertension, and diabetes mellitus.

In summary, both short and long sleep durations increased prevalence of sarcopenia. Further studies are needed to explore the underlying mechanisms.