Eur J Clin Nutr: Zhejiang University uses Chinese data to show how nap times are associated with metabolic-related diseases.

Naps are common practice in many countries, especially in China.
has long been considered a healthy activity, and it is believed that naps can benefit people, including reducing sleep deprivation, improving performance and improving mood.
, there is evidence that naps can be harmful to health in some cases.
in the case of disease, naps may have different health effects and are influenced by time, age, gender and race.
October 20, researchers at the Institute of Chronic Diseases, affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine, published a new study in the journal European Journal of Clinical Nutrition that looked at the relationship between nap times and different metabolic-related diseases.
study was conducted in four urban communities in Lanxi, Zhejiang Province, and involved 3,327 residents aged 18-80.
study, naps were defined as "daytime sleep after lunch."
researchers collected sleep-related indicators using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire, as well as demographic characteristics, lifestyle assessments, medical history, family history of the disease, and medication use.
, they also looked at participants' smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and body mass index.
Then, they divided the participants into four groups based on different nap times (0, 0.5, 1 and more than 1 hour) and investigated differences in prevalence of obesity-related diseases (diabetes, abnormal blood lipids, fatty liver, and central obesity).
used the Logistic regression model to examine the ratio of 4 metabolic-related diseases to nap time (OR) and to further use strated analysis to explore the interaction of sex and age on outcomes.
found that people who nap for more than an hour have the highest rates of diabetes, fatty liver disease and central obesity.
addition, all three diseases, except diabetes, showed a downward trend in the 0-0.5-hour group.
compared to participants who did not take naps, participants who naped for more than an hour were independently associated with the prevalence of diabetes.
the causal relationship between long-term naps and diabetes still needs to be further tested, keeping day naps for an hour may have potential benefits in preventing diabetes and related diseases, the researchers said.
In three models, researchers on the prevalence of different diseases further analyzed the association between nap times and different diseases by gender and age strat layering, and found that the relationship between nap times and diseases was different in both sex groups.
men's nap time was shown to be more associated with hyperlipidemia, while women were more associated with diabetes and central obesity.
, the positive correlation between long naps in women and the disease was more pronounced than in men.
although these correlations are not statistically significant, they suggest that longer nap times (more than 0.5 hours) may be harmful to women.
the prevalence of different diseases, depending on the length of naps in men and women, the effects of nap times on disease also appear to be age-related.
After layering by age of 50, it was found that daytime habitual naps of less than half an hour were negatively associated with fatty liver and lipid abnormalities in men under 50, and negatively associated with central obesity in women under 50.
The findings are significant because they highlight the importance of naps as a healthy lifestyle that promotes the well-being of individuals in disease prevention and weight control, especially for young people younger than 50, according to the length of naps taken at age 50 and 50.
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