The quality and amount of sleep is important for ensuring the health of an individual. Good quality of sleep is linked to good health and may have a role in determining cognitive and mental health as well. Good amount of sleep is important for ensuring that levels of stress stay low. This is why health experts insist that adults and kids get enough sleep to ensure mental and physical well-being. Now a new study has also linked sleep to quality of nutrition, indicating that the quality of sleep may be linked to presence or absence of essential vitamins and minerals in a person's diet. The study further said that the strongest association was seen to be among the women participants.
The study was based on the data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which is a nationally representative sample of American adults. The aim of NHANES is to assess the health status of both children and adults in the US, through surveys and physical exams. The study found that as many as 47 per cent of adults over 19 years of age experience poor quality of sleep and sleep timings of seven hours and less was linked to low levels of essential micronutrients like Vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, niacin etc. as well as macronutrients like dietary fibre.
The association was seen to be stronger among women than men, while the effect was reduced if these women took dietary supplements. This suggested that dietary supplements may enhance levels of nutrients, in cases where a person's diet is lacking in nutrition, as well as when the body cannot produce these nutrients on its own. The study demonstrated the importance of consumption of micro and macronutrients in a person's diet to their sleep quality. However, the researchers couldn't prove a causal link between poor diet and poor sleep. The results of the study were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nutrition in Baltimore, on June 9th, 2019. The study hasn't been published in any peer-reviewed journal yet.
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