Environmental toxicant exposure and sleep: Findings from a U.S. population study
S. Leng, Y. Jin, X. TangIntroduction
Sleep plays a vital role in promoting health. Elucidating the associations between common environmental toxicants and sleep is essential to guide targeted mechanistic studies and inform preventive strategies.
Objectives
This study aims to systematically evaluate the relationships between a broad spectrum of environmental toxicants and both sleep disturbances and sleep duration.
Methods
We analyzed data from participants in the 2013–2014 and 2015–2016 waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) with available measurements of blood or urinary environmental toxicants, sleep disturbances, and sleep duration. A total of 82 toxicants spanning 13 categories were examined, including aromatic amines, arsenic species, bisphenols, heterocyclic aromatic amines, iodine, metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compound (VOC) metabolites, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), phthalates, parabens, perchlorate, nitrate, thiocyanate, pyrethroids, herbicides, and organophosphate (OP) metabolites. An exposome-wide association study and the deletion-substitution-addition (DSA) algorithm were used to assess associations with self-reported sleep disturbance and duration adjusted for important covariates. Subgroup analyses stratified by sex and age were performed.
Results
Among 3,882 adults included (mean age 45.8 ± 19.0 years; 1,907 [49.1%] female), five categories of environmental toxicants (PAHs, VOCs, metals, OP metabolites, and thiocyanate) were significantly associated with sleep disturbance prevalence. Subgroup analyses revealed that females and younger individuals were more vulnerable to these toxicants than their male and older counterparts. Comparably, several environmental toxicants were associated with abnormal sleep duration, with certain pyrethoids, VOCs, parabens, and metals linked to short sleep duration (< 6 hours) and certain pyrethoids, bisphenols, and PFAS to long sleep duration (> 10 hours).
Image 1: Long description.