Sleep and fruit and vegetable consumption in UK adults

A substantial burden of disease globally is attributable to both sleep disruption and low intakes of fruit and vegetable (FV) and increasing mechanistic and epidemiological evidence support a reciprocal relationship between the two. Short and long sleep durations are associated with an increased risk of mortality, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and obesity. These associations may be partly mediated by changes in dietary intake including FV consumption. In 2017, an estimated 3.9 million deaths worldwide were attributable to inadequate FV consumption. However, few researchers have explored associations between sleep and FV consumption.
I first explored the cross-sectional associations between objective sleep measures (sleep onset, sleep offset, mid-sleep time and sleep duration) and FV consumption in healthy UK adults. I analysed a biomarker of FV consumption, vitamin C. Subsequent analyses showed that every hour later mid-sleep time (chronotype) was associated with 16% lower intakes of total fruit. Next, prospective analyses of The UK Women’s Cohort Study (UKWCS) showed an inverse association between FV intakes and their polyphenol content with sleep duration. Analyses of a nationally representative database showed that sleep duration was non-linearly associated with FV intakes. Short and long sleepers had lower FV intakes compared to the reference group. Finally, using the UKWCS, I explored both cross-sectional and prospective associations between sleep duration and FV consumption. Consistent with the previous findings, sleep duration was non-linearly associated with FV consumption with those sleeping the recommend 7-9 hours/day having the highest intakes compared to short and long sleepers.
This project helped in bridging the gap between sleep duration and FV consumption in UK adults that might have key public health implications. The findings also strengthen the notion that sleep duration and FV consumption have a reciprocal relationship. Finally, this project shows that sleeping the recommended hours is associated with higher intakes of FV.