Sleep duration and risk of hyperlipidemia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies

Current studies indicate that the association between sleep duration and risk of hyperlipidemia is uncertain. This systematic review aimed to evaluate relevant prospective studies and make a definite conclusion. Three databases were searched for prospective studies on the relationship between sleep duration and hyperlipidemia risk from their inception to October 2020. We identified twelve studies involving 114,439 participants. Follow-up for incident hyperlipidemia ranged from 200 days to 10 years. Neither long (RR:1.00, 95%CI:0.90–1.11, P > 0.05) nor short (RR:0.99, 95%CI:0.94–1.05, P > 0.05) sleep duration had a significant association with increased hyperlipidemia risk in adults. However, long sleep duration was decidedly associated with low HDL-C (RR:0.19, 95%CI: − 0.03–0.40, P < 0.05) and high triglycerides (RR: − 0.20, 95%CI: − 0.43–0.03, P < 0.05) in children and adolescents. Long sleep duration has strong associations with risks of low HDL-C and high triglycerides in children and adolescents. The mechanisms underlying this association deserves to be explored in future studies.