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Clinical Summary

Night-owl adolescent girls may have increased risk for adiposity

Takeaway

  • Among adolescent girls, staying up late and having shifting sleep schedules on weekends compared with weekdays is associated with increased risk for adiposity and cardiometabolic disruptions.
  • This association was not seen in boys, suggesting greater vulnerability among girls to obesity risk with sleep-wake disruption.

Why this matters

  • Editorial: calls the evidence "compelling" and suggests tailoring messages about earlier sleep time as a way to improve weight status.

Key results

  • The authors found no associations for any of the metabolic or weight outcomes and sleep among boys.
  • For girls, increasing late evening preference was linked to:
    • Higher waist circumference: Pinteraction=.04.
    • Higher fat-mass index: Pinteraction=.03.
  • For girls, greater "social jet lag," or sleep-wake schedule shifts during the week, also was linked to:
    • Higher waist circumference: Pinteraction=.21.
    • Higher fat-mass index: Pinteraction=.01.
  • The authors found no associations in cardiometabolic risk score analyses, but say the power was low.

Study design

  • Adolescents (418 girls, 386 boys; aged 12-17 [mean, 13.2] years) participated from January 2012 to October 2016 in 5+ days of measurement-taking (e.g., actigraphy) and completing questionnaires about sleep preferences.
  • Outcomes included adiposity, cholesterol, BP, waist circumference.
  • Funding: NIH, others.

Limitations

  • Cross-sectional study, so no causation established.

References


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