Individual associations of self-reported sleep duration, sleep quality, chronotype and social jet lag with infectious disease risk

Abstract

Sleep deficiency is associated with infectious disease risk. However, little is known about the individual roles of different aspects of sleep, including sleep duration, sleep quality, sleep timing (assessed by chronotype) and sleep regularity (in the form of social jet lag) in this context. Here, we examined associations of the probability of reporting a cold or other infections with self-reported sleep duration, sleep quality and chronotype in a sample of 642 adults, and with social jet lag in a subsample of 274 adults. We found that short (≤ 6 h) and long sleepers (≥ 9 h) were more likely to report a cold in the past 30 days than average sleepers (7-8 h). Also, individuals with a definite evening chronotype were more likely to report a cold in the past 30 days than those with an intermediate chronotype, even when controlling for sleep duration. Finally, social jet lag was dose-dependently associated with the risk of reporting a cold in the past 12 months, independently of sleep duration, sleep quality and chronotype. No associations were found with sleep quality or with infections other than colds. The findings show that different aspects of sleep are independently associated with incidence of reported colds.This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Circadian rhythms in infection and immunity'.

Keywords: chronotype; common cold; infection; sleep; social jet lag.

Figure 1.

Sleep duration, chronotype and social jet lag are associated with the likelihood of reporting a cold. (a) Percentage of participants who reported having had a cold (dark green) or not (light green) in the past 30 days, stratified by sleep duration (≤ 6 h, between 7 and 8 h, and ≥ 9 h); (b) percentage of individuals who reported having had a cold (dark orange) or not (light orange) in the past 30 days, stratified by chronotype (definite morning type, moderate morning type, intermediate type, moderate evening type and definite evening type); (c) percentage of participants who reported having had a cold (dark blue) or not (light blue) in the past 12 months, stratified by the amount of social jet lag (SJL; 0–15 min, 16–60 min and > 60 min).