Sleep duration and mortality – Does weekend sleep matter?

Previous studies have found a U-shaped relationship between mortality and (weekday) sleep duration. We here address the association of both weekday and weekend sleep duration with overall mortality. A cohort of 43,880 subjects was followed for 13 years through record-linkages. Cox proportional hazards regression models with attained age as time-scale were fitted to estimate multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for mortality; stratified analyses on age (<65 years, ≥65 years) were conducted. Among individuals <65 years old, short sleep (≤5 hr) during weekends at baseline was associated with a 52% higher mortality rate (hazard ratios 1.52; 95% confidence intervals 1.15-2.02) compared with the reference group (7 hr), while no association was observed for long (≥9 hr) weekend sleep. When, instead, different combinations of weekday and weekend sleep durations were analysed, we observed a detrimental association with consistently sleeping ≤5 hr (hazard ratios 1.65; 95% confidence intervals 1.22-2.23) or ≥8 hr (hazard ratios 1.25; 95% confidence intervals 1.05-1.50), compared with consistently sleeping 6-7 hr per day (reference). The mortality rate among participants with short sleep during weekdays, but long sleep during weekends, did not differ from the rate of the reference group. Among individuals ≥65 years old, no association between weekend sleep or weekday/weekend sleep durations and mortality was observed. In conclusion, short, but not long, weekend sleep was associated with an increased mortality in subjects <65 years. In the same age group, short sleep (or long sleep) on both weekdays and weekend showed increased mortality. Possibly, long weekend sleep may compensate for short weekday sleep.