Age of puberty and Sleep duration: Observational and Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

Earlier age of puberty has detrimental consequences for many aspects of health. Here, for the first time, we assessed the association of earlier puberty with sleep duration observationally and with validation using Mendelian Randomization. In the "Children of 1997" birth cohort (n = 8,327), we used adjusted multivariable logistic regression to assess the associations of each clinically assessed marker of earlier puberty with self-report sleep duration in adolescence. Using two-sample MR, we assessed the effect of earlier puberty timing based on 203 single nucleotide polymorphisms applied to genome wide association studies of sleep duration in adults (n = 335,410). In "Children of 1997", cross-sectionally, older age of menarche was associated with longer (9+ hours) sleep duration [odds ratio (OR) 1.11, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01 to 1.21] at 13.5 years. The other earlier puberty markers were unrelated to sleep duration. Using inverse variance weighting, later of age at menarche increased adult sleep duration [0.020 per category, 95% CI 0.006 to 0.034]. This study demonstrated a causal effect of age at menarche on adult sleep duration, since age of menarche also affects obesity, our novel finding may be relevant to the observed relation of sleep duration with obesity and poor health.

Association between healthy lifestyle pattern and early onset of puberty: based on a longitudinal follow-up study

“…The relationship between physical activity and puberty timing remained controversial, since most studies were conducted in elite athletes, and little evidence was seen from general population samples (12) . Later age of menarche seemed to be associated with longer sleep duration (13) , but sleep duration had a limited connection with the age of sexual development in another study (14) . The onset of puberty occurred significantly earlier among people with smoking (15) , without drinking alcohol before puberty (16) .…”

“…Later age of menarche seemed to be associated with longer sleep duration (13) , but sleep duration had a limited connection with the age of sexual development in another study (14) . The onset of puberty occurred significantly earlier among people with smoking (15) , without drinking alcohol before puberty (16) .…”

Impact of sleep patterns upon female neuroendocrinology and reproductive outcomes: a comprehensive review

“…Pubertal youth experience delayed sleep phase (the natural tendency for later bedtime), longer sleep latency, less deep sleep, and a greater tolerance to stay up compared to pre-pubertal youth [ 132 ]. In a Chinese cohort study, older age at menarche was associated with longer sleep duration (OR = 1.11; 95% CI = 1.01–1.21), though other measures of puberty timing (breast, genitalia, and pubic hair development) were unrelated to sleep duration [ 133 ]. Another study found that pubertal maturation (measured by Tanner stages 1 to 5) was associated with a progressive increase in the prevalence of insomnia symptoms, which more significantly affects girls: 3.4–12.2% in girls (3.6-fold) compared to 4.3–9.1% in boys (2.1-fold) [ 134 ].…”

Association of body composition with pubertal timing in children and adolescents from Guangzhou, China

“…(4) Furthermore, confounding bias might constitute the main source of the inconsistencies across studies. Multiple factors, such as social and economic factors, physical activity, sleep, and dietary habit, might obscure the relationship between obesity and puberty timing (36)(37)(38)(39). To overcome the problem of confounding bias, the propensity score-based inverse probability weighting (IPW) approach has been proposed recently (40).…”