History of Weight Cycling Is Prospectively Associated With Shorter and Poorer-Quality Sleep and Higher Sleep Apnea Risk in Diverse US Women.
Vivian Cao, Nour Makarem, Moorea Maguire and 4 others
PMID 33938536WHAT IT FOUND
Women who had repeatedly lost and gained at least 10 lb in a year reported shorter sleep, poorer sleep quality, and higher sleep apnea risk at follow-up.
These findings do not show that weight cycling caused sleep problems.
Key findings
01At 1 year, women with any history of weight cycling had higher odds of short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, high sleep apnea risk, longer sleep onset latency, and worse sleep efficiency than women with no history.
02At 1 year, more weight cycling episodes were associated with shorter sleep duration, poorer sleep quality, greater insomnia severity, poorer subjective sleep quality, and more sleep disturbances.
03At baseline, weight cycling was associated with 61% higher odds of sleeping less than 7 hours and greater than 2-fold odds of high sleep apnea risk, but not with sleep onset latency, insomnia severity, or snoring.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The design was observational, so it cannot determine whether weight cycling causes poor sleep. Weight cycling and sleep were self-reported, so recall bias is possible. The Berlin questionnaire identifies risk for sleep apnea but does not diagnose it or measure severity. The sample was community-based and may not represent the broader US population. The moderate sample size limited subgroup analyses by life stage. Follow-up was only 1 year. The association between weight cycling and sleep medication use at 1 year was not significant after adjustment for pregnancy history and menopausal status.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflicts of interest. The article is marked as supported by NIH extramural and non-U.S. government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that weight cycling causes sleep problems or that stabilizing weight will improve sleep. The study was observational and relied on self-reported weight cycling and sleep questionnaires, so it can only show associations.