Association between the DASH dietary pattern with sleep duration and sleep quality in Iranian employees

The association between the dietary approach to stop hypertension (DASH) and sleep status is well-documented. Nevertheless, a consistent relationship with employees population has yet to be known. Thus, we aimed to investigate the relationship between the DASH diet and sleep quantity/quality among Iranian employees of both genders.

We enrolled 337 persons whose Sleep status was assessed through the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. A validated Food Frequency Questionnaire was used to measure the DASH diet score. Analysis of variance and covariance, chi-square, and multinomial logistic regression tests were used as appropriate.

Our findings demonstrated that, even after adjusting for multiple potential confounders the odds of poor sleep quality were not significantly related to the higher DASH diet adherence (OR = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.38-1.27). However, participants in the highest tertiles of DASH had lower chances of experiencing short sleep duration compared to those in the lowest one (OR = 0.53; 95% CI: 0.30-0.96).

The present study indicated that Iranian employees with a higher adherence to the DASH diet had considerably lower odds of having short sleep; however DASH adherence has no significant effect on sleep quality. More prospective and controlled investigations are required to confirm these findings.