Long Sleep Duration Is an Independent Risk Factor for Incident Atrial Fibrillation in a Chinese Population: A Prospective Cohort Study

Abstract

Abstract There is limited information on the relation between sleep duration and incident atrial fibrillation. We aimed to investigate this association in a Chinese population using cohort data from a study in Kailuan. The analysis included 87,693 participants (age range, 18–98 years) free of atrial fibrillation at the baseline survey. Participants were divided into three categories according to self-reported sleep duration: ≤6.0 hours, 7 hours (ref), ≥8.0 hours. Atrial fibrillation diagnosis was made on a standard 12-lead electrocardiogram and via self-reported history. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratio (HR) and confidence interval (CI) for atrial fibrillation, according to sleep duration. During median follow-up of 7.89 (range, 6.36–8.57) years, 322 cases of atrial fibrillation had occurred. Using 7 hours of sleep as the reference group, multivariable adjusted HRs (95% CI) for atrial fibrillation were 1.07 (0.75–1.53), 1.0 (ref), and 1.50 (1.07–2.10), from lowest to highest category of sleep duration. Secondary analysis showed no evidence of interactions between sleep duration and sex and snoring on the risk of incident atrial fibrillation (p = 0.75/0.25). We conclude long sleep duration may be a potential predictor/marker for incident atrial fibrillation.