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Research Paper|Volume 14, Issue 7|pp 2930—2944

Association between sleep parameters and longitudinal shortening of telomere length

Jeong-Hwa Jin1, Hyuk Sung Kwon1, Seong Hye Choi2, Seong-Ho Koh1, Eun-Hye Lee1, Jee Hyang Jeong3, Jae-Won Jang4, Kyung Won Park5, Eun-Joo Kim6, Hee Jin Kim7, Jin Yong Hong8, Soo Jin Yoon9, Bora Yoon10, Hyun-Hee Park1, Jungsoon Ha1,11, Jong Eun Park12, Myung Hoon Han13
  • 1Department of Neurology, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Guri, Republic of Korea
  • 2Department of Neurology, Inha University School of Medicine, Incheon, Republic of Korea
  • 3Department of Neurology, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 4Department of Neurology, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon, Republic of Korea
  • 5Department of Neurology, Dong-A Medical Center, Dong-A University College of Medicine, Busan, Republic of Korea
  • 6Department of Neurology, Pusan National University Hospital, Pusan National University School of Medicine and Medical Research Institute, Busan, Republic of Korea
  • 7Department of Neurology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 8Department of Neurology, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju, Republic of Korea
  • 9Department of Neurology, Eulji University Hospital, Eulji University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
  • 10Department of Neurology, Konyang University College of Medicine, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
  • 11GemVax & Kael Co. Ltd., Seongnam, Republic of Korea
  • 12Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Guri, Republic of Korea
  • 13Department of Neurosurgery, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Guri, Republic of Korea
* Equal contribution
Received: August 20, 2021Accepted: March 24, 2022Published: April 2, 2022
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203993

Copyright: © 2022 Jin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: The relationship between sleep parameters and longitudinal shortening of telomere length is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between sleep parameters and the shortening of leukocyte telomere length (LTL) over a year.

Methods: Among the participants in the validation cohort of the Korea Brain Aging Study for the Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer’s Disease, participants who measured both baseline and follow-up (two years later) of LTL were analyzed. They were dichotomized according to the degree of LTL attrition over two years. Clinical characteristics were compared between the faster and slower LTL shortening groups (cut-off points: −0.710 kbp, n = 119 each). Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to determine independent relationships between faster shortening of LTL length and sleep parameters.

Results: A total of 238 participants, aged 55–88 years, were included. Participants with faster LTL shortening had a shorter duration of sleep (P = 0.013) and longer sleep latency (P = 0.007). Among the components of the PSQI, subjective measures of sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, and sleep efficiency were significantly worse in participants with faster LTL shortening. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that sleep duration (per hour, OR = 0.831, 95% CI = 0.698–0.989), sleep latency (per minute, OR = 1.013, 95% CI = 1.002–1.024), global PSQI score (OR = 1.134, 95% CI = 1.040–1.236), shortest sleep duration (OR = 5.173, 95% CI = 1.563–17.126), and lowest sleep efficiency (OR = 7.351, 95% CI = 1.943–27.946) were independently associated with faster LTL shortening.

Conclusions: Poor sleep quality, specifically short sleep duration, long sleep latency, and low sleep efficiency were associated with faster longitudinal shortening of LTL.