Background and aim: No study to date has documented the association between short sleep duration and the risk for obesity in older people. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine cross-sectional associations between short sleep duration and variations in body fat indices in older women.
Methods: Anthropometric and body composition measurements, resting energy expenditure, daily energy expenditure, daily energy intake, plasma lipid-lipoprotein profile, and self-reported sleep duration were determined in a sample of 90 women of 50 years and above.
Results: The odds ratios for overweight/obesity were comparable in subjects reporting <7 hours and >or=7 hours of sleep per day, with or without adjustment for age, daily energy expenditure and daily energy intake. The results did not permit to observe any significant difference between the two sleeper groups for all the variables investigated. The correlations between sleep duration and adiposity indices were also non significant.
Conclusions: Short sleep duration does not predict an increased risk of being overweight/obese in older women. This observation, together with our previously reported results in younger subjects, suggests that the sleep-body fat relationship progressively becomes less detectable with increasing in age.