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Worse Crohn’s disease activity causes more sleep disturbances
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Patients with worse Crohn’s disease activity experience more disturbances to their sleep patterns, according to research published in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.
Taha Qazi, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and colleagues wrote that previous research has shown that sleep disturbances are common in patients with CD, but data are limited on the link between activity and objective sleep estimates.
“Poor sleep has been associated with reduced quality of life in CD patients,” they wrote. “Moreover, additional evidence suggests a higher incidence of both flares and subclinical disease activity in CD patients with sleep disturbances.”
Researchers recruited 80 patients with CD to take part in a seven-day sleep study and measured their sleep patterns using wrist actigraphy. They separated the 72 patients who completed at least five days of data into groups based on their disease activity; remission (n = 28), mild disease (n = 22) and moderate-to-severe (n = 22). Patients also completed surveys to assess their self-reported sleep characteristics.
While the patients’ self-reported sleep habits did not differ between groups, investigators found that patients with moderate-to-severe disease spent a significantly longer time awake after they fell asleep compared with patients in remission or with mild disease (65.8 minutes vs. 44.3 minutes and 49.1 minutes, respectively; each P < .05). More patients with moderate-to-severe CD also slept less efficiently compared with patients in remission (86.6% vs. 89.9%; P = 0.03).
After controlling for confounding factors, researchers found that moderate-to-severe disease with an increased amount of fragmented sleep (OR = 3.7; 95% CI, 1.23–11.32).
Qazi and colleagues wrote that future studies could help define the effect of sleep habits on CD severity.
“Although we determined that disease severity is a significant factor that leads to sleep disturbance in CD, larger studies using these objective measures may help determine the contribution of other factors,” they wrote. “Moreover, further longitudinal studies may help in elucidating the role of sleep in the cadence of disease flares in IBD.” – by Alex Young
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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