Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep;67(9):1853-1864.
doi: 10.1007/s00125-024-06202-8. Epub 2024 Jun 27.

Long-term trajectories of sleep duration are associated with incident diabetes in middle-to-older-aged Black and White Americans

Qian Xiao  1   2 , Kelsie M Full  3 , Martin K Rutter  4   5   6 , Loren Lipworth  3
Affiliations

Long-term trajectories of sleep duration are associated with incident diabetes in middle-to-older-aged Black and White Americans

Qian Xiao et al. Diabetologia. 2024 Sep.

Abstract

Aims/hypothesis: Both short and long sleep durations have been linked to higher diabetes risk. However, sleep duration may vary over time, and there has been limited research focusing on individual sleep trajectories and diabetes risk. There are substantial racial disparities in both sleep health and diabetes risk in the USA. Thus, it is important to understand the role of suboptimal sleep patterns in diabetes risk in different racial groups.

Methods: We assessed long-term trajectories of sleep duration and incident diabetes in 22,285 Black adults (mean age ± SD, 51.1 ± 8.2 years; 64.8% women) and 13,737 White adults (mean age ± SD, 54.4 ± 9.0 years; 63.8% women) enrolled in the Southern Community Cohort Study. Nine sleep trajectories were derived based on self-reported sleep duration at baseline and after a mean of 5 years of follow-up: normal-normal (reference), short-normal, normal-short, short-short, long-normal, normal-long, long-long, long-short and short-long. Diabetes was reported using a validated questionnaire. Multivariable-adjusted logistic regression was used to determine relationships between sleep trajectories and incident diabetes.

Results: When compared with the normal-normal trajectory, suboptimal sleep trajectories were associated with higher likelihoods of developing diabetes (OR; 95% CI: short-normal 1.19; 1.09, 1.31; normal-short 1.14; 1.02, 1.27; short-short 1.17; 1.07, 1.28; long-normal 1.13; 0.98, 1.30; normal-long 1.16; 1.00, 1.34; long-long 1.23; 1.02, 1.48; long-short 1.45; 1.19, 1.77; short-long 1.51; 1.28, 1.77). Stratified analyses by race and socioeconomic status (i.e. education and household income) showed that most suboptimal sleep trajectories were consistently associated with incident diabetes in all sociodemographic subgroups. We also noted potential interaction with race and education for several sleep trajectories (i.e. short-long and normal-short with race; long-long and short-short with education).

Conclusions/interpretation: Adults with suboptimal sleep duration trajectories are more likely to develop incident diabetes. Future research is needed to study how sociodemographic factors modulate this relationship.

Keywords: Incident diabetes; Racial disparities; Sleep duration; Sleep trajectories.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interests: The authors report no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Associations between long-term sleep patterns and incident diabetes in the Southern Community Cohort Study in the total sample, and by race (a.) and education (b.). Results were derived from multiple logistic regression models adjusted for age (continuous), sex (male, female), race (Black, White, not in race-stratified analysis), education (less than high school, high school graduate, vocational training or some college, college graduate or higher, not in education-stratified analysis), marital status (married, separated or divorced or widowed, never been married), annual household income (<$15k, $15-<25k, $25-<50k, $50k+), employment status (employed, unemployed), smoking status (current, former, never), alcohol use (non-drinker, <1 drink per day, 1+ drinks per day), HEI-2015 (quartiles), total physical activity (MET-hours, quartiles), total sitting hours (quartiles), and follow-up time (continuous). Bars represent ORs and error bars represent 95% CI. P-values for interaction between race and the sleep trajectory variables are 0.03 for health-to-short, 0.49 for stable short, 0.86 for healthy-to-long, 0.63 for stable long, and 0.01 for unstable unhealthy. P-values for interaction between education and sleep trajectory variables are 0.24 for health-to-short, 0.03 for stable short, 0.12 for healthy-to-Long, 0.002 for stable long, and 0.15 for unstable unhealthy. Abbreviations: BMI, body-mass index; CI, confidence interval; HEI, Healthy Eating Index; MET-hour, metabolic equivalent hour; OR, odds ratio.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Katz Y, Levin NJRSoE. Quantifying urban light pollution—A comparison between field measurements and EROS-B imagery. 2016;177:65–77.
    1. Shan Z, Ma H, Xie M, et al. Sleep duration and risk of type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. Diabetes Care. 2015;38(3):529–537. - PubMed
    1. Lu H, Yang Q, Tian F, et al. A Meta-Analysis of a Cohort Study on the Association between Sleep Duration and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. J Diabetes Res 2021;2021:8861038. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ohayon MM, Carskadon MA, Guilleminault C, Vitiello MV. Meta-analysis of quantitative sleep parameters from childhood to old age in healthy individuals: developing normative sleep values across the human lifespan. Sleep. 2004;27(7):1255–1273. - PubMed
    1. Ferrie JE, Kivimaki M, Akbaraly TN, et al. Change in Sleep Duration and Type 2 Diabetes: The Whitehall II Study. Diabetes Care. 2015;38(8):1467–1472. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources