The association between sedentary behavior, exercise, and sleep disturbance: A mediation analysis of inflammatory biomarkers

Yanwei You; Yuquan Chen; Wen Fang; Xingtian Li; Rui Wang; Jianxiu Liu; Xindong Ma

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2022.1080782

The association between sedentary behavior, exercise, and sleep disturbance: A mediation analysis of inflammatory biomarkers

Front Immunol. 2023 Jan 13:13:1080782. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1080782. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yanwei You^{1

2}, Yuquan Chen³, Wen Fang^{1

2}, Xingtian Li^{1

2}, Rui Wang^{1

2}, Jianxiu Liu^{1

4}, Xindong Ma^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Sports Science and Physical Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
² School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
³ Institute of Medical Information/Medical Library, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
⁴ Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
⁵ IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Background: Two related lifestyle behaviors associated with sleep disturbance are sedentary behavior and physical exercise participation. We aimed to use a population-based study to disentangle the relationships between sedentary behavior, exercise, and sleep disturbance based on blood-cell-based inflammatory biomarkers.

Methods: A total of 22,599 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were included in the analyses. Sleep disturbance was assessed according to the NHANES questionnaire. Exercise participation ansd sedentary behavior were evaluated by the global physical activity questionnaire. The inflammatory biomarkers in the examination were white blood cell (WBC) count, neutrophil count (NEU), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and systemic immune inflammation index (SII). A complex multistage sampling design and weighted multivariable logistic regression were applied for further analysis. Mediation models were constructed to figure out the mediating role of inflammatory biomarkers.

Results: The weighted prevalence of sleep disturbance was 24.17%. Sedentary behavior and exercise were associated with sleep disturbance after full adjustment [for sedentary behavior, OR (95% CI): 1.261 (1.154, 1.377); for exercise, OR (95% CI): 0.849 (0.757, 0.953)]. In severe sedentary behavior groups, the mitigation effect of exercise on sleep disturbance was observed [OR (95% CI): 0.687 (0.551, 0.857)]. For the mechanism, strong associations were detected between inflammatory biomarkers and sleep disturbance. Mediation analysis showed that WBC, NEU, NLR, and SII mediated the statistical association between sedentary behavior and sleep disturbance with proportions (%) of 2.09, 2.27, 1.76, and 0.82, respectively.

Conclusions: Our data suggested that sedentary behavior was a risk factor for sleep disturbance. Blood-cell-based inflammatory biomarkers were an easily accessible and cost-effective strategy for identifying sleep disturbance and also significantly mediated the association between sedentary behavior and sleep disturbance. Exercise was proved to be effective in severe sedentary behavior groups to improve sleep disturbance symptoms, while the internal mechanism needed further exploration.

Keywords: blood-cell based inflammatory biomarkers; exercise; population-based study; sedentary behavior; sleep disturbance.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biomarkers
Exercise
Humans
Mediation Analysis*
Nutrition Surveys
Sedentary Behavior*
Sleep

Substances

Biomarkers

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Institute of Sports Development Research of Tsinghua University (Research on John Mo’s thought and practice of Physical Education) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2022M711858).