Endocrine Abstracts

Background/objectives: This study aimed to investigate associations between self-reported sleep duration and general and abdominal obesity in Korean adults stratified according to sex and age.

Subjects/methods: Data from 41,805 adults, 18–110 years of age, collected by the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) in 2007 and 2015, were included. Obesity was defined as body mass index (BMI) ≥25 kg/m², and abdominal obesity as waist circumference ≥90 cm in men and ≥85 cm in women. To control for sociodemographic and lifestyle factors and comorbidities, multivariable logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for obesity and abdominal obesity across sleep duration categories of ≤5, 6–8, and ≥9 h/day.

Results: The mean (± S.E.M.) age was 43.8±0.13 years; BMI was 23.7±0.02 kg/m²; waist circumference was 81.1±0.08 cm; and sleep duration was 6.9±1.3 h/day. General obesity was present in 13,203 (31.7%) participants and abdominal obesity in 10,712 (23.9%). Among individuals 30–49 years of age, there was an increased adjusted OR for obesity only for sleep duration ≤5 h/day compared with sleep duration 6–8 h/day, both in men (OR 1.25 (95% CI 1.02–1.54)) and women (OR 1.56 (95% CI 1.29–1.90)), after controlling for sociodemographic and lifestyle factors. Regarding women, there was increased adjusted OR for abdominal obesity for sleep duration ≤5 h/day (OR 1.45 (95% CI 1.18–1.78)) and ≥9 h/day (OR 1.38 (95% CI 1.09–1.76)) compared with sleep duration 6–8 h/day. However, for elderly individuals (≥65 years), there was a negative association between sleep duration ≤5 h/day and obesity, but not with abdominal obesity, in both men and women.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated a significant association between sleep duration and obesity, which varied according to sex and age.