Introduction: The prevalence of dementia continues to increase as the global population ages. Sleep and physical activity are key modifiable lifestyle factors for preventing dementia. Sleep appears to be a multidimensional health behavior that affects...
Introduction: The prevalence of dementia continues to increase as the global population ages. Sleep and physical activity are key modifiable lifestyle factors for preventing dementia. Sleep appears to be a multidimensional health behavior that affects health outcomes through multiple biological and behavioral pathways. However, most researchers have generally focused on single sleep indicators, such as sleep duration, independently examining sleep and physical activity. Researchers have relied on self-report questionnaires, which are subject to recall bias. Therefore, various aspects of sleep patterns and physical activity must be objectively measured to clarify their independent and joint associations with the risk of dementia.
Objective: The aim in this prospective cohort study was to investigate the individual and joint associations of sleep patterns and physical activity with the risk of dementia using UK Biobank (UKB) accelerometry data.
Methods: Accelerometer data from the UKB of 39,091 older adults were used. All incidences of dementia were obtained from national hospital admissions, primary care, and death registries. The sleep patterns and physical activity were measured using a wrist-worn triaxial accelerometer. Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the independent and joint associations among sleep patterns, physical activity, and the risk of developing dementia after adjusting for covariates.
Results: Short sleep duration (<6 hours; hazard ratio (HR) = 1.32; 95% CI: 1.13–1.53), low sleep efficiency (<85%; HR = 1.32; 95% CI: 1.00–1.73), low standard deviation of sleep duration (>30 min; HR = 1.62; 95% CI: 1.1–2.31), early sleep onset (before 23:00; HR = 1.33; 95% CI: 1.08–1.64), and early sleep midpoint (before 03:00; HR =1.20; 95% CI: 1.01–1.42) were associated with a significantly higher risk of dementia. Physical activity was associated with a significantly lower risk of dementia (≥150 min/week; HR = 0.61; 95% CI: 0.49–0.75). In the interaction analysis, high physical activity levels (≥150 min/week) were associated with a significant lower risk of dementia when combined with short sleep (<6 h; HR = 0.64; 95% CI: 0.45–0.90), low sleep efficiency (<85%; HR = 0.52; 95% CI: 0.35–0.78), or irregular sleep (<50 Sleep regularity index (SRI); HR=0.62; 95% CI: 0.40–0.97).
Conclusions: Unhealthy sleep patterns, including insufficient quantity, continuity, regularity, and timing, were associated with a higher risk of dementia. The benefits of higher physical activity levels were mitigated by the detrimental effects of inadequate sleep quantity, continuity, and regularity on the risk of developing dementia. Collectively, these findings suggest that the integrated management of sleep patterns and physical activity is beneficial for preventing dementia.
KEY WORDS: Accelerometry, Dementia, Older adults, Physical activity, Sleep, UK Biobank