One of the new studies found that frequent nighttime awakening was associated with faster disease progression in MASLD (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease) patients. Hence, enhancing sleep quality in these patients may also help slowdown its progress.
Metabolic health issues are now widespread. Some of the significant risk factors for metabolic diseases are excessive calorie intake, sedentary lifestyle, stress, and sleep disturbances. Although there is a significant awareness of the need to make dietary changes or engage in physical exercise, but people are not doing enough to reduce chronic stress and enhance sleep quality.
Additionally, there is also a lack of awareness about certain metabolic disorders. Most individuals know about diabetes, but very few people know that fatty liver disease is much more common than diabetes or even heart disease.
In fact, studies show that more than 30% of adults in the US are living with fatty liver disease. It was previously called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but now it is called MASLD (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease).
What is even worse is that even science does not fully understand MASLD. It is known that this condition mostly affects obese people and occurs due to excessive accumulation of fat in the liver. However, science still does not fully know why this fat accumulation is worse in some and less in other obese individuals.
MASLD progresses slowly over the years and does not cause many symptoms during its early stages. This is also one of the reasons why there is low awareness about the condition. However, like any other metabolic disorder, if untreated, it causes many complications.
Thus, MASLD significantly increases the risk of diabetes and is among the leading causes of liver cancer. It may also increase the risk of kidney disease. Additionally, those living with the condition are also at a greater risk of heart attack and stroke. MASLD causes fatigue and greater muscle loss in older adults.
Earlier studies have shown that sleep disturbances in those living with MASLD are quite common. However, now, one of the latest studies shows that this association is bi-directional, which means that sleep disturbances also increase MASLD risk. Not only that, MASLD progression is faster in those living with sleep disturbances.
For optimal health, it is vital to sleep for 7-8 hours. However, it is equally vital to have quality sleep with few awakenings. However, this new study found that those who suffer from frequent awakenings and have poor sleep quality are also more likely to have faster progress of MASLD.
In the study, researchers enrolled 46 men and women diagnosed with MASLD between 2019 and 2021. During the study period, patients were regularly tested, and they were also given sleep questionnaires to understand their sleep habits. Additionally, researchers also asked patients to maintain sleep diaries. All the patients were obese, and 80% of them had metabolic syndrome.
Apart from sleep questionnaires and sleep diary, the researcher also used actigraph, a device to monitor sleep remotely. This ensured that their findings were objective.
When researchers analyzed actigraphs, they did not find much difference in the sleep duration of the patients. All patients spent almost a similar amount of time in the bed.
However, when researchers further analyzed sleep data, they found that those with greater MASLD progress were also 55% more likely to awake during the night. During the night, they also had longer awake periods than healthy adults (almost double).
In sleep diaries also, 32% of MASLD patients reported stress and sleep difficulties, compared to just 6% in healthy adults.
So, researchers think that there is a need to focus on enhancing sleep quality in those living with MASLD. Researchers also noticed that short-term interventions for enhancing sleep quality in MASLD do not seem to work. Thus, researchers think that there is a need for more extensive clinical studies using more extensive methods to improve sleep in MASLD patients. Future studies must explore the impact of sleep interventions on MASLD progression.
Source:
Schaeffer, S., Bogdanovic, A., Hildebrandt, T., Flint, E., Geng, A., Pecenko, S., Lussier, P., Strumberger, M. A., Meyer, M., Weber, J., Heim, M. H., Cajochen, C., & Bernsmeier, C. (2024). Significant nocturnal wakefulness after sleep onset in metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease. Frontiers in Network Physiology, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnetp.2024.1458665
