Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2009) 19 P128

SFEBES2009 Poster Presentations Diabetes, Metabolism and Cardiovascular (49 abstracts)

Napping is associated with an increased risk of the metabolic syndrome

T Arora 1,2 , KH Lam 3 , CQ Jiang 4 , GN Thomas 3 , WS Zhang 4 , S Taheri 1,2 , P Adab 3 , TH Lam 5 & KK Cheng 3


1School of Medicine, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; 2Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham, UK; 3Unit of Public Health, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; 4Guangzhou Number 12 People’s Hospital, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 5School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China.


Background: Millions of people worldwide take an intentional nap or siesta after lunch, but data describing potential health effects of naps are very limited. We report on associations between napping and metabolic syndrome risk in a large older Chinese group.

Methods: Data from 16 480 older participants (≥50 years) from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study were analysed. Sociodemographic parameters, including frequency of lunch-time napping were collected by structured questionnaire. The relationship between frequency of napping and metabolic syndrome risk factors and its features were investigated using analysis of covariance and logistic regression analyses.

Results: A total of 67.5% napped at least once per week. The prevalence of most metabolic syndrome risk factors increased with napping frequency. These included hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidaemia and after adjustment for potential confounders, the OR’s were 1.22 (95% CI 1.13, 1.32), 1.30 (1.16, 1.46), and 1.17 (1.08, 1.26), respectively. No association was found between central obesity and napping. The association between napping and the metabolic syndrome remained in greater magnitude of risk if the IDF definition was replaced by the criteria by the National Cholesterol Education Program-Adult Expert Panel III (NCEP-ATP III) (OR=1.39; 95% CI 1.25, 1.55) or the joint American Heart Association/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute consensus (OR=1.24, 95% CI 1.14, 1.35). The risk of having these conditions was increased by 14–30% in daily nappers vs. those who never napped. Removal of those with existing vascular disease did not alter the observed associations.

Conclusions: After adjustment for a range of potential confounding factors, our data suggests that napping is associated with an increased risk of the metabolic syndrome and its associated features in this older Chinese sample. Thus napping has important public health implications should these results be confirmed in other populations.

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