Correlation between obesity and sleep disturbance in Saudi medical students.
Abdulaziz A Alodhayani, Omalkhaire M Alshaikh, Firas Abdulsattar Ghomraoui and 4 others
PMID 28265135WHAT IT FOUND
Average sleep was 7.13 hours in normal-weight, 7.11 hours in overweight, and 6.90 hours in obese Saudi medical students.
The authors report an association between sleep and weight, but the duration difference is small and not clearly shown.
Key findings
01Average sleep was 7.13 hours in normal-weight students, 7.11 hours in overweight students, and 6.90 hours in obese students.
02The paper reports average sleep as an association with BMI that did not reach statistical significance.
03Dozing after lunch was reported by 88.3% of students, and dozing while sitting and reading by 81.2%.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study measured sleep and BMI at one time, so it cannot show that poor sleep caused weight gain. It used Saudi medical students, so the results may not apply to older adults, people with disabilities, or clinical patients. Sleep duration and dozing were based on questionnaires. Only 54 students were classified as obese, so the obese group was small. The paper reports average sleep as not significant (p>0.05) but still concludes that sleep disturbance affected weight gain. The paper says nutritional details were not recorded and hypertension was not measured.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest were declared. The paper does not report a funding source.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that short sleep causes obesity. The study was cross-sectional, and average sleep was 7.13 hours in normal-weight students, 7.11 hours in overweight students, and 6.90 hours in obese students, a difference the paper reports as not statistically significant.