Aim: This pilot study examined associations between sleep quality and metabolic risk profiles, underlying hormones, inflammatory markers, and behaviors in overweight and obese young adults, aged 18-29 years.
Design: Cross-sectional, descriptive, correlational study design.
Method: A partial sample ( n = 29) was re-recruited from a parent study on screening for risk of early-onset diabetes. BodyMedia's SenseWear® armband was used to assess sleep quality. Based on the percentage of consolidated sleep days during the past week, participants were classified as poor, fair, or good sleepers. Multiple multivariate general linear models were used to examine group differences in study variables after adjusting for obesity impact.
Results: There were no significant differences among groups in age (mean 23.5 ± 2.9 years) or body mass index (mean 38.0 ± 8.9 kg/m2). Good sleepers ( n = 12, 41.4%) showed the longest nocturnal sleep duration (7:53 ± 1:00 hr), followed by fair ( n = 12, 41.4%, 7:23 ± 1:34 hr) and poor sleepers ( n = 5, 17.2%, 5:34 ± 0:56 hr). Poor sleepers showed the highest plasma resistin (η2 = .103) and ghrelin (η2 = .205) levels and caloric (η2 = .255) and sodium (η2 = .156) intakes. No differences in clinical metabolic markers or serum leptin or adiponectin were observed.
Conclusions: Overweight/obese young adults had irregular sleep schedules and patterns, indicators of poor sleep quality, that were possibly associated with changes in dietary behaviors and underlying plasma hormones. In addition to traditional clinical cardiometabolic markers, plasma resistin and ghrelin may be good predictors of heightened vulnerability to cardiometabolic diseases in overweight/obese young adults with poor-quality sleep.
Keywords: cardiometabolic health; hormonal changes; overweight/obese young adults; sleep quality.