Cohort study reveals elevated cardiovascular disease risk from short sleep duration in adults, indicating physical activity does not offset sleep loss.
Key Points
To investigate the independent and combined associations of sleep duration and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity with incident cardiovascular disease.
Prospective cohort analysis of 5,873 participants aged ≥40 years from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (2009–2015) followed for a mean of 5 years.
Sleep duration was classified as healthy, short, or long using age-specific criteria, and physical activity was categorized via the Compendium of Physical Activities.
Multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models and competing risk analyses for all-cause mortality assessed incident cardiovascular disease.
Short sleep duration was associated with a 58% higher risk of cardiovascular disease (HR = 1.58, 95% CI: 1.03–2.45) compared to healthy sleep, whereas long sleep showed no significant association across 142 incident events.
Each 1-hour reduction in sleep duration within the ≤8 hours per day range corresponded to a 20% increase in cardiovascular risk (HR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.01–1.42).
Active moderate-to-vigorous physical activity did not significantly attenuate the cardiovascular disease risk associated with short sleep duration.