Decreased Sleep Duration Closely Associated to Thyroid Cancer Risk: BMC

A recent study published in the BMC Cancer highlighted the significant connections between various sleep traits and the risk of thyroid cancer. This study utilized data from the FinnGen and UK Biobank databases to offer new insights into how sleep patterns and disorders could influence the development of thyroid cancer.

This research utilized summary single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-phenotype association data which was obtained from published genome-wide association studies (GWASs). Through a meticulous screening process, they selected SNPs strongly associated with specific sleep traits like the sleep duration, snoring, chronotype, sleep disorders, getting up in the morning, sleeplessness/insomnia and daytime napping. Various statistical methods, including the inverse variance weighted (IVW), MR robust adjusted profile score (MR-RAPS), MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO) and the Weighted Median were employed to estimate the causal links between these sleep traits and thyroid cancer risk. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to measure the strength of these associations.

The results of this analysis revealed;

Individuals who reported getting up in the morning and the individuals who napped during the day showed a decreased risk of thyroid cancer in the Italian population. The odds ratios were OR = 0.055 (95%CI: 0.004–0.741) for morning risers and OR = 0.031 (95%CI: 0.002–0.462) for the individuals who took daytime naps.

A reduction of 1.30 hours in sleep duration was related to a substantial increase in thyroid cancer risk in the Finnish population (OR = 7.307, 95%CI: 1.642–32.519). The combined analysis further confirmed that reduced sleep duration was associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer (OR = 5.600, 95%CI: 1.458–21.486).

The study found that chronotype or the natural inclination of the individual towards being a morning or evening person could decrease the risk of thyroid cancer in the Finnish population (OR = 0.282, 95%CI: 0.085–0.939). Also, the sleep disorders were associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer in the same population (OR = 2.298, 95%CI: 1.194–4.422).

The study found that reduced sleep duration is closely associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer which underlines the critical importance of adequate sleep for cancer prevention. These findings suggest that maintaining healthy sleep habits, including sufficient sleep duration and managing sleep disorders could be vital strategies in reducing thyroid cancer risk.

Reference:

Zong, L., Liu, G., He, H., & Huang, D. (2024). Causal association of sleep traits with the risk of thyroid cancer: A mendelian randomization study. In BMC Cancer (Vol. 24, Issue 1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-024-12376-6