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Topical Area: Nutritional Epidemiology

Nutritional Epidemiology (II) (Poster Session)

(P29-050-23) Associations Between Meal-Based Diet Quality and Sleep Regularity in US Adults: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011-2012

Monday, July 24, 2023
11:45 AM – 12:45 PM ET
Location: Poster Board 175
Disclosure(s):
Li Yang, PhD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Jennifer J. Barb, PhD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: Associations between diet and sleep regularity are not well understood to date, while the connection between sleep duration and diet has been well-studied. The sleep regularity index (SRI), a measure of day-to-day variability in sleep-wake times, has been shown to be associated with positive and negative health outcomes. The aim of this work is to investigate associations between meal-based diet quality and the SRI.

Methods: Using NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) 2011-2012 data in US adults aged 20 years or older, the SRI and the day and night sleep duration were calculated from actigraphy across seven days. Eating occasions (providing ≥50 kcal) were categorized into either meals or snacks based on self-reported name and clock time of eating occasion. Meal-based and total diet quality using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2010) were calculated from two 24-hour dietary recalls. SAS PROC Surveyreg procedure for complex survey data and SurveyCorrCov macro were used to assess the association between meal-based diet quality, SRI, sleep duration, and demographic variables.

Results: Among the NHANES sample (n=5560; 50.7% female; mean age = 47.37, SE = 0.83), the average two-day total-HEI score was 54.73 (SE 0.55) and the mean SRI score was 61.32 (SE 0.82). After controlling for age, sex, and race/ethnicity, those with higher total-HEI, dinner-HEI, lunch-HEI, and breakfast-HEI scores reported higher SRI scores (ps < .05). Individuals who consumed after-dinner snacks between 21:00 and 5:00 (avg kcal = 449.37, SE = 12.40) showed an inverse association with SRI based on kcal(p=.038). When controlling for sleep duration, lunch-HEI (p = .0019) and breakfast-HEI (p = .0301) remained significantly associated with SRI, while dinner-HEI (p = .7335) and after-dinner-HEI (p = .6791) did not.

Conclusions: Among U.S. adults, better sleep regularity (higher SRI score) is associated with better meal-based diet quality and thus can be used as a sleep metric related to diet. Higher calorie intake after dinner is associated with lower SRI. The impact of sleep duration on this association is meal dependent. Future analyses are needed to determine the causality between SRI and meal-based diet quality.

Funding Sources: Provided by the NIH Clinical Center Intramural Research Program