Impact of Sleep Duration and Weekend Oversleep on Body Weight and Blood Pressure in Adolescents

Abstract

Introduction Weekend oversleep or catchup sleep is a frequent occurrence in children, but there are relatively little data concerning its impact on weight and blood pressure. The aim of this study was to assess the association between sleep duration and oversleep, and weight and blood pressure in adolescents.

Methods Sleep duration, weight and blood pressure of 327 children (51.4% boys, mean age 13.3 ± 1.7 years) who had polysomnograms performed during both exam cycles of the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea study (TuCASA) were analyzed. Sleep duration on school nights and non-school nights was used to compute a weighted average of child and parent reported overall sleep duration respectively. Oversleep was defined as the difference between self and parent reported weekend sleep and weekday sleep separately. Simple correlations between overall sleep duration, sleep on school and non-school nights and oversleep, and blood pressure, standardized body mass index (BMI), snoring, respiratory disturbance index (RDI) and age were calculated. Significant bivariate associations then were used to develop multivariate partial correlation models.

Results Unadjusted negative correlations with BMI were noted for parent reported total sleep duration at the 1st exam cycle, parent and child reported total sleep and school night sleep duration, and parent reported non-school night sleep duration at the 2nd exam cycle. Additionally, for BMI, positive correlations were observed for log RDI at both exam cycles and snoring at the 2nd exam cycle. For blood pressure, there were positive associations with age, parent reported oversleep, caffeine consumption and snoring. Additionally, for blood pressure, negative relationships were observed with parent reported total sleep duration at the 1st exam cycle, and parent and child reported total sleep and school night sleep durations at the 2nd exam cycle. Partial correlations found that BMI was negatively correlated with parent reported total sleep duration at the 1st exam cycle and parent reported total sleep duration at the 2nd exam cycle, and positively correlated with snoring and log RDI at both exam cycles. Systolic blood pressure was only associated with age and snoring. Diastolic blood pressure was positively correlated with age and caffeine consumption, and negatively correlated with parent reported total and school night sleep duration. Oversleep and child reported sleep duration were not represented in any of these models.

Conclusion Lower amounts of sleep especially on school nights is associated with higher body weight and blood pressure. Oversleep was not associated with either body weight or blood pressure.