Impaired Rest-Activity Rhythm Characteristics Predict Higher Risk of Incident Type 2 Diabetes in UK Biobank Participants

Circadian rhythms play a key role in metabolic health. Rest-activity rhythms, which are in part driven by circadian rhythms, may be associated with diabetes risk. There is a need for large prospective studies to comprehensively examine different rest-activity metrics to determine their relative strength in predicting risk of incident type 2 diabetes.

In actigraphy data from 83,887 UK Biobank participants, we applied both parametric and nonparametric algorithms to derive 13 different metrics characterizing different aspects of rest-activity rhythm. Diabetes cases were identified using both self-reported data and health records. We used Cox proportional hazards models to assess associations between rest-activity parameters and type 2 diabetes risk and random forest models to determine the relative importance of these parameters in risk prediction.

We found that multiple rest-activity characteristics were predictive of a higher risk of incident diabetes, including lower pseudo-F statistic (hazard ratio [HR] of quintile 1 [Q1] vs. Q5 1.27; 95% CI 1.09-1.46; Ptrend < 0.001), lower amplitude (HRQ1 vs. Q5 2.56; 95% CI 2.21-2.97; Ptrend < 0.001), lower midline estimating statistic of rhythm (HRQ1 vs. Q5 2.59; 95% CI 2.24-3.00; Ptrend < 0.001), lower relative amplitude (HRQ1 vs. Q5 4.64; 95% CI 3.74-5.76; Ptrend < 0.001), lower M10 (HRQ1 vs. Q5 3.82; 95% CI 3.20-4.55; Ptrend < 0.001), higher L5 (HRQ5 vs. Q1 1.88; 95% CI 1.62-2.19; Ptrend < 0.001), and later L5 start time (HRQ5 vs. Q1 1.20; 95% CI 1.04-1.38; Ptrend = 0.004). Random forest models ranked most of the rest-activity metrics as top predictors of diabetes incidence, when compared with traditional diabetes risk factors. The findings were consistent across subgroups of age, sex, BMI, and shift work status.

Rest-activity rhythm characteristics measured from actigraphy data may serve as digital biomarkers for predicting type 2 diabetes risk.