Exploring the Association Between Sleep Duration and Cancer Risk in Middle-aged and Older Chinese Adults: Observations from a Representative Cohort Study (2011-2020)

Overview

Journal BMC Public Health

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Public Health

Date 2024 Jul 8

PMID 38978056

Authors

Yang Jiang

Xinyue Gu

Xiao Yang

Aidi Sun

Huixin Sun

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: This prospective cohort study aimed to investigate the relationship between sleep duration and cancer incidence among 9996 participants over a median follow-up period of 9 years.

Methods: Participants without cancer at baseline were followed for over 88,790 person-years. The incidence of cancer and sleep duration was self-reported. The relationship between sleep duration and cancer incidence was analyzed using Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for various confounding factors, including age, gender, lifestyle factors, and comorbidities.

Results: During the follow-up, 325 participants were diagnosed with incident cancer, resulting in an incidence rate of 20.49 per 1000 person-years. After adjusting for confounders, a total sleep duration of less than 6 h was significantly associated with an increased risk of cancer (HR: 1.27; 95% CI: 1.01-1.61). This association was particularly strong for cancers in the digestive and respiratory systems (HR: 1.41; 95% CI: 1.03-1.93). Longer sleep durations (> 9 h) showed a potential increase in cancer risk, but results were not consistently significant. Age-stratified analyses revealed a similar significant increase in cancer incidence among individuals aged 60 years or younger with less than 6 h of sleep per day, showing a 35% increase in overall cancer risk and an 83% increase in digestive and respiratory system cancer. No significant association was found between nocturnal sleep durations or daytime naps and cancer incidence. However, a significant interaction was observed between daytime naps longer than 30 min and cancer incidence in women (p = 0.041).

Conclusions: We observed that short sleep duration may increase the risk of cancer, particularly cancers in the digestive and respiratory systems. Additionally, while longer sleep durations might also increase cancer risk, this finding requires validation with larger sample sizes.

Citing Articles

Sleep Duration, Dietary Inflammatory Potential, and Obesity in Relation to Colorectal Cancer Incidence in the Multiethnic Cohort.

Tembo P, Zhao L, Le Marchand L, Wilkens L, Park S, Haiman C Nutrients. 2025; 17(3).

PMID: 39940229 PMC: 11820058. DOI: 10.3390/nu17030370.

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