Associations between change in sleep duration and inflammation: findings on C-reactive protein and interleukin 6 in the Whitehall II Study.

Cross-sectional evidence suggests associations between sleep duration and levels of the inflammatory markers, C-reactive protein and interleukin-6. This longitudinal study uses data from the London-based Whitehall II study to examine whether changes in sleep duration are associated with average levels of inflammation from 2 measures 5 years apart. Sleep duration (≤5, 6, 7, 8, ≥9 hours on an average week night) was assessed in 5,003 middle-aged women and men in 1991/1994 and 1997/1999. Fasting levels of C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 were measured in 1997/1999 and 2002/2004. Cross-sectional analyses indicated that shorter sleep is associated with higher levels of inflammatory markers. Longitudinal analyses showed that each hour per night decrease in sleep duration between 1991/1994 and 1997/1999 was associated with higher levels of C-reactive protein (8.1%) and interleukin-6 (4.5%) averaged across measures in 1997/1999 and 2002/2004. Adjustment for longstanding illness and major cardiometabolic risk factors indicated that disease processes may partially underlie these associations. An increase in sleep duration was not associated with average levels of inflammatory markers. These results suggest that both short sleep and reductions in sleep are associated with average levels of inflammation over a 5-year period.

[1]  Michelle A. Miller.  Association of inflammatory markers with cardiovascular risk and sleepiness. , 2011, Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

[2]  L. Gallicchio,et al.  Sleep duration and mortality: a systematic review and meta‐analysis , 2009, Journal of sleep research.

[3]  S. Redline,et al.  Sleep duration and biomarkers of inflammation. , 2009, Sleep.

[4]  Pasquale Strazzullo,et al.  Sleep duration predicts cardiovascular outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies. , 2011, European heart journal.

[5]  M. Irwin,et al.  Sleep Loss Activates Cellular Inflammatory Signaling , 2008, Biological Psychiatry.

[6]  Philippa H Gander,et al.  Sleep measurement in flight crew: comparing actigraphic and subjective estimates to polysomnography. , 2005, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[7]  Jennifer G. Robinson,et al.  The interleukin-6 receptor as a target for prevention of coronary heart disease: a mendelian randomisation analysis , 2012, The Lancet.

[8]  Klaus P. Ebmeier,et al.  Long-term inflammation increases risk of common mental disorder: a cohort study , 2013, Molecular Psychiatry.

[9]  D. Papanicolaou,et al.  Chronic insomnia is associated with a shift of interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor secretion from nighttime to daytime. , 2002, Metabolism: clinical and experimental.

[10]  Meena Kumari,et al.  Sleep epidemiology--a rapidly growing field. , 2011, International journal of epidemiology.

[11]  Chi-Chen Shih,et al.  Sleep duration is a potential risk factor for newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus. , 2011, Metabolism: clinical and experimental.

[12]  A. Miller,et al.  The evolutionary significance of depression in Pathogen Host Defense (PATHOS-D) , 2012, Molecular Psychiatry.

[13]  M. Marmot,et al.  Gender differences in the cross-sectional relationships between sleep duration and markers of inflammation: Whitehall II study. , 2009, Sleep.

[14]  M. Hall,et al.  Disturbed sleep is associated with increased C-reactive protein in young women , 2009, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

[15]  J. Mullington,et al.  Sleep, inflammation and cardiovascular disease. , 2012, Frontiers in bioscience.

[16]  Michael Marmot,et al.  Cohort Profile: the Whitehall II study. , 2005, International journal of epidemiology.

[17]  B. Feige,et al.  Increased nocturnal interleukin-6 excretion in patients with primary insomnia: A pilot study , 2006, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

[18]  Markku Partinen,et al.  Sleep and mortality: a population-based 22-year follow-up study. , 2007, Sleep.

[19]  J. Mullington,et al.  Sleep loss and inflammation. , 2010, Best practice & research. Clinical endocrinology & metabolism.

[20]  Mikko Härmä,et al.  Sleep Restriction Increases the Risk of Developing Cardiovascular Diseases by Augmenting Proinflammatory Responses through IL-17 and CRP , 2009, PloS one.

[21]  Are inflammatory and coagulation biomarkers related to sleep characteristics in mid-life women?: Study of Women's Health across the Nation sleep study. , 2010, Sleep.

[22]  Vilmundur Gudnason,et al.  C-reactive protein and other circulating markers of inflammation in the prediction of coronary heart disease. , 2004, The New England journal of medicine.

[23]  D. Papanicolaou,et al.  Circadian interleukin-6 secretion and quantity and depth of sleep. , 1999, The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism.

[24]  Steven B. Heymsfield,et al.  Short Sleep Duration as a Risk Factor for Hypertension: Analyses of the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey , 2006, Hypertension.

[25]  J. Dowd,et al.  Sleep duration, sleep quality, and biomarkers of inflammation in a Taiwanese population. , 2011, Annals of epidemiology.

[26]  E. Bixler,et al.  Adverse effects of modest sleep restriction on sleepiness, performance, and inflammatory cytokines. , 2004, The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism.

[27]  Vilmundur Gudnason,et al.  Long-Term Interleukin-6 Levels and Subsequent Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: Two New Prospective Studies and a Systematic Review , 2008, PLoS medicine.

[28]  I. Kushner,et al.  Acute-phase proteins and other systemic responses to inflammation. , 1999, The New England journal of medicine.

[29]  M. Marmot,et al.  Cross-sectional versus prospective associations of sleep duration with changes in relative weight and body fat distribution: the Whitehall II Study. , 2008, American journal of epidemiology.

[30]  J. Danesh,et al.  Chronic infections and coronary heart disease: is there a link? , 1997, The Lancet.

[31]  N. Marshall,et al.  Sleep duration: risk factor or risk marker for ill-health? , 2010 .

[32]  T. Young,et al.  Correlates of serum C-reactive protein (CRP)--no association with sleep duration or sleep disordered breathing. , 2007, Sleep.

[33]  Nader Rifai,et al.  Effect of sleep loss on C-reactive protein, an inflammatory marker of cardiovascular risk. , 2004, Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

[34]  Carol A Everson,et al.  Clinical assessment of blood leukocytes, serum cytokines, and serum immunoglobulins as responses to sleep deprivation in laboratory rats. , 2005, American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology.