1473-P: Variability in Objective Sleep Duration Associates with Gut Microbiota Composition and Metabolic Parameters—A Metagenomic Analysis in Healthy Subjects in a Community Study

• Published in: Diabetes (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 74; no. Supplement_1; p. 1
• Main Authors: XIE, SUYI, CHEN, CHRIS XIE, CHAN, JOEY W., HUANG, BEI, CHAN, RACHEL NGAN YIN, WING, YUN KWOK
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York American Diabetes Association 20.06.2025
• Subjects: Community composition; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Gut microbiota; Homeostasis; Intestinal microflora; Low density lipoprotein; Metabolism; Metagenomics; Microbiomes; Microbiota; Sleep; Variability
• ISSN: 0012-1797; 1939-327X
• DOI: 10.2337/db25-1473-P

Introduction and Objective: While sleep duration and gut microbiota influence cardiometabolic health, the impact of daily sleep variability on gut microbiota remains unexplored. We investigated associations between sleep duration variability, gut microbiome composition, and metabolic parameters in individuals without diabetes. Methods: We analyzed 276 participants (mean age: 53.3 ± 14.0 years) without diabetes or COVID infection history from a Hong Kong long COVID cohort. Sleep duration variability was measured as the standard deviation of sleep duration across ≥3 consecutive days using wrist-worn actigraphy, with high variability defined as ≥1 hour. Gut microbiota composition was assessed through metagenomic sequencing. We assessed interactions between sleep variability and gut microbiota diversity on metabolic parameters, followed by analysis of the relationships between sleep variability-associated species and metabolic parameters via multivariable regression. Results: High sleep variability was negatively associated with gut microbiota alpha diversity (Shannon index: adjusted β=-9.0 [-15.3, -2.6], p=0.006; richness: β=-0.07 [-0.11, -0.03], p=0.002) and microbial community composition (R²=0.006, p=0.03). Differential species analysis between high (N=125) and low (N=151) sleep variability groups revealed reduced Anaerobutyricum soehngenii in the high variability group (q=0.12). A. soehngenii showed negative correlations with LDL-c (β=-0.02, p=0.03) and SBP (β=-0.46, p=0.01). These associations were more profound in the high sleep variability group, while no association were found in less variable group. Conclusion: High sleep duration variability is associated with altered gut microbiota composition. The selective association between specific bacterial species and metabolic parameters suggests sleep pattern consistency influences metabolic homeostasis.