Childhood sleep health and epigenetic age acceleration in late adolescence: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses
Aim: Investigate if childhood measures of sleep health are associated with epigenetic age acceleration in late adolescence.
Methods: Parent-reported sleep trajectories from age 5 to 17, self-reported sleep problems at age 17, and six measures of epigenetic age acceleration at age 17 were studied in 1,192 young Australians from the Raine Study Gen2.
Results: There was no evidence for a relationship between the parent-reported sleep trajectories and epigenetic age acceleration (p ≥ .17). There was a positive cross-sectional relationship between self-reported sleep problem score and intrinsic epigenetic age acceleration at age 17 (b = 0.14, p = .04), which was attenuated after controlling for depressive symptom score at the same age (b = 0.08, p = .34). Follow-up analyses suggested this finding may represent greater overtiredness and intrinsic epigenetic age acceleration in adolescents with higher depressive symptoms.
Conclusion: There was no evidence for a relationship between self- or parent-reported sleep health and epigenetic age acceleration in late adolescence after adjusting for depressive symptoms. Mental health should be considered as a potential confounding variable in future research on sleep and epigenetic age acceleration, particularly if subjective measures of sleep are used.
History
Publication title
Acta PaediatricaISSN
0803-5253Department/School
Menzies Institute for Medical ResearchPublisher
Taylor & Francis AsPlace of publication
Cort Adelersgt 17, Po Box 2562, Solli, Oslo, Norway, 0202Rights statement
© 2023 The Authors. Acta Paediatrica published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation Acta Paediatrica. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Repository Status
- Open