Sleep duration and falls: a systemic review and meta‐analysis of observational studies

Abstract

SUMMARYSeveral epidemiological studies have linked sleep duration with falls; however, the findings yielded inconsistent results. No quantitative analysis has specifically assessed the influence of sleep duration on falls. PubMed and Embase were screened for observational studies from inception to 13 September 2016. A generic inverse-variance method was used to pool the outcome data for sleep duration categories of the lowest category versus reference, and the highest category versus reference with a randomeffects model. Dose-response analysis was performed to evaluate the potential relationship of sleep duration with falls. Finally, seven eligible observational studies involving a total of 212 829 participants were included in the present meta-analysis. Compared with the reference category, both short and long sleep duration were significantly associated with falls, and the pooled odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 1.32 (1.21, 1.46) and 1.35 (1.17, 1.56), respectively, both with evidence of significant heterogeneity. An approximately 'U-shaped' curve was observed, and the lowest risk of falls was shown at 7-8 h day À1 of sleep duration. Further subgroup analysis found that the association of long sleep duration and falls was more pronounced among Caucasians. The present study is limited to its small number of included studies, considerable heterogeneity, observational study design and the large contribution of a single article. Further researches are still needed to confirm the causal association between sleep duration and falls in populations with different gender, age and ethnicity.

Bridging the Reciprocal Gap between Sleep and Fruit and Vegetable Consumption: A Review of the Evidence, Potential Mechanisms, Implications, and Directions for Future Work

“…Participants sleeping ~8 h had the lowest prevalence of poor sleep and unfavorable behaviors and characteristics [92]. Interestingly, the U-shaped association was found between sleep duration and serum lipid profiles in Chinese women [93], between sleep duration and diabetic retinopathy [94], and sleep duration and the risk of falls [95].…”

Sleep Disturbances and Hip Fractures

“…Since both short as well as long sleep durations appear to be significantly associated with falls [33], it is recommended that older adults be carefully questioned by their care providers about their normal average nights length of sleep, and as required, help them to understand that both too little as well as too much sleep can prove equally problematic in increasing falls and fracture risk. The number of days in the week where poor sleep is evident should also be examined, as the falls risk increases with number of sleep related days reported [6].…”

Sleep in mental disorders, ageing and memory, insomnia, external factors on sleep and basic research

“…Several papers in this issue focus upon the ageing process and its relationship to sleep. Highly interesting is the systematic review and meta‐analysis by Wu and Sun (), which showed that there was a ‘U‐shaped’ correlation between sleep duration and nocturnal falls. The lowest risk of falls occurred with 7–8 h of sleep.…”