Physical activity may counter some of the negative effects associated with sleeping either too little or too much, researchers report today.
Scientists from The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, China, analysed the effects of physical activity and sleep duration on mortality risk in the first study of its kind.
Writing in the latest edition of the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, they say increased physical activity levels weakened the mortality risks associated with short or long sleep duration.
Although it is known sufficient exercise and healthy sleep contribute to prolonged life expectancy, it is unclear how physical activity interacts with sleep duration to promote health.
To establish the reason, they used accelerometry to analyse 92,221 adults in the UK Biobank programme. All the participants were aged 40 to 73 years – average age was 62 years – and 56% were women. All wore an accelerometer wristband for one week between 2013 and 2015.
The researchers classified sleep duration per night as short (less than six hours), normal (six to eight hours) or long (more than eight hours).
Total volume of physical activity was divided into tertiles (low, intermediate, high), while moderate to vigorous physical activity was classified according to whether or not the participants met World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
Mortality data were collected from death registries and the primary outcome was all-cause death and secondary endpoints were death due to cardiovascular disease and death due to cancer.
During a median follow up of seven years, 3,080 participants died – 1,074 from cardiovascular disease and 1,871 from cancer.
When the team examined how physical activity influenced sleep’s impact on mortality, they analysed the volume of activity and moderate to vigorous physical activity.
Among those who recorded low amounts of activity, short and long sleep were associated with 16% and 37% raised risks of all-cause death, respectively.
They found in participants who undertook intermediate amounts of exercise short sleep had a 41% raised likelihood of all-cause death, while among those who recorded a high amount of exercise, sleep duration was not linked with risk of death.
Short sleepers with a low volume of exercise had a 69% elevated risk for cardiovascular death, but this dissipated when exercise increased to moderate or high volumes.
For cancer death, long sleepers with low amounts of exercise had a 21% raised risk, which also disappeared with moderate or high volumes of exercise.
In participants not meeting the WHO recommendations, short and long sleep were associated with 31% and 20% raised risks of all-cause death, respectively, but these risks disappeared when they met WHO advice.
Short sleepers who failed to meet the advice on intensity of exercise had a 52% elevated risk of cardiovascular death, but this dissipated when they achieved exercise recommendations.
Long sleepers not meeting the physical activity advice had a 21% increased risk of cancer death. This also disappeared when they followed WHO guidance.
Dr Jihui Zhang said: “Our findings suggest that health promotion efforts targeting both physical activity and sleep duration may be more effective in preventing or delaying premature death in middle-aged and older adults than focusing on one behaviour alone.
“In an ideal scenario, people would always get healthy amounts of both sleep and physical activity. However, our study indicates that getting sufficient exercise may partially offset the detrimental impact of missing a good night’s sleep.”
Liang YY, Feng H, Chen Y, et al. Joint association of physical activity and sleep duration with risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality: A population-based cohort study using accelerometry. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 30 March 2023; doi:10.1093/eurjpc/zwad060.
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