The role of accelerometer-derived sleep traits on glycated haemoglobin and glucose levels: a Mendelian randomization study

Journal article

Self-reported shorter/longer sleep duration, insomnia, and evening preference are associated with hyperglycaemia in observational analyses, with similar observations in small studies using accelerometer-derived sleep traits. Mendelian randomization (MR) studies support an effect of self-reported insomnia, but not others, on glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c). To explore potential effects, we used MR methods to assess effects of accelerometer-derived sleep traits (duration, mid-point least active 5-h, mid-point most active 10-h, sleep fragmentation, and efficiency) on HbA1c/glucose in European adults from the UK Biobank (UKB) (n = 73,797) and the MAGIC consortium (n = 146,806). Cross-trait linkage disequilibrium score regression was applied to determine genetic correlations across accelerometer-derived, self-reported sleep traits, and HbA1c/glucose. We found no causal effect of any accelerometer-derived sleep trait on HbA1c or glucose. Similar MR results for self-reported sleep traits in the UKB sub-sample with accelerometer-derived measures suggested our results were not explained by selection bias. Phenotypic and genetic correlation analyses suggested complex relationships between self-reported and accelerometer-derived traits indicating that they may reflect different types of exposure. These findings suggested accelerometer-derived sleep traits do not affect HbA1c. Accelerometer-derived measures of sleep duration and quality might not simply be ‘objective’ measures of self-reported sleep duration and insomnia, but rather captured different sleep characteristics.

Authors: Liu, J; Richmond, RC; Anderson, EL; Bowden, J; Barry, CS

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 1
• Article number: 14962
• Publication date: 2024-06-28
• Acceptance date: 2024-03-25
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58007-9
• EISSN: 2045-2322
• ISSN: 2045-2322
• Language: English
• Keywords: Glycated haemoglobin; Sleepiness; Epidemiology; Diabetes; Glucose; Mendelian randomization