Accelerometer-measured weekend catch-up sleep and incident dementia: A prospective cohort study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Epidemiology
• Sleep Science

Background:

• Healthy sleep is crucial for cognitive function.
• The impact of weekend sleep extension on dementia risk remains under investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between weekend catch-up sleep and the risk of all-cause dementia.
• To explore whether this association differs based on weekday sleep duration.

Main Methods:

• Utilized accelerometer data from 83,776 UK Biobank participants (aged ≥50) to measure sleep duration over 7 days.
• Defined weekend catch-up sleep as the difference between weekend and weekday sleep durations.
• Employed Cox regression models to analyze the association between catch-up sleep and dementia risk over a median 8.0-year follow-up.

Main Results:

• A moderate amount of weekend catch-up sleep (1-1.5 hours) was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause dementia (HR: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.49-0.86).
• This protective association was more pronounced in individuals with less than 8 hours of weekday sleep (HR: 0.49, 95% CI: 0.29-0.81).
• No significant association was observed in participants sleeping 8 hours or more on weekdays.

Conclusions:

• Moderate weekend sleep extension, especially 1-1.5 hours, is linked to a lower risk of dementia.
• The benefit is more significant for individuals with shorter weekday sleep durations.
• Findings suggest that optimizing sleep patterns, including weekend recovery sleep, may play a role in dementia prevention.