Sleep Duration In Middle-aged Adults Predicts The Age Of Onset Of Parkinson’s Disease

Chronic short sleep duration (i.e. <7 hrs sleep daily) could reduce the brain’s ability to attenuate toxin and protein accumulation in the brain. These aggregates are thought to contribute to Parkinson’s disease (PD). Chronic low sleep duration prior to PD onset could influence how early PD is diagnosed. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to characterize the relationship between self-reported sleep duration from adolescence to adulthood and the age of disease onset in people with PD. METHODS: A secondary data analysis was run using the Fox Insight data set, an ongoing study consisting of questionnaires collected longitudinally over several years. Although data is collected on participants with and without self-reported PD, only those who reported a diagnosis of PD were included for this current study. First, multiple regression analysis was used to determine at which age range did sleep duration best predict age of onset of PD. Next, hierarchical linear multiple regression was performed to assess the extent to which self-reported sleep duration, physical activity (PA) variables, and their interaction predicted the age of onset for PD after accounting for sociodemographic factors. RESULTS: A total of n = 2,310 participants were included in the analysis. These participants completed both the sleep duration and PA questionnaires. Sleep duration for those aged 46 to 55 years significantly predicted age of onset of PD (p < .001) while the sleep duration at other age ranges were non-significant. In a subsequent model, sleep duration during ages 46 to 55 maintained significance after controlling for participant education, income, race, ethnicity, and sex (p < .001). In a final model, weekly duration of time spent performing moderate-intensity physical activity (MPA) was added as an input variable. In addition to a main effect for sleep time (p < .001), MPA time (p = .007), but not the interaction of sleep by MVP (p = .051), emerged as a significant predictor of age of onset of PD. CONCLUSION: Sleep duration, specifically in middle-aged adults, plays an important role in determining the onset of PD. Future research is needed in further exploring the effects of PA on age of onset of PD concurrently with chronic sleep deprivation to determine the benefits of PA on disease risk prevention.