Digestery
Lifestyle practices › Sleep Length and Health › Studies

Population study: followed a group

Study that followed 1,216 teens: under 7 hours' sleep linked to overweight or obesity

Martínez-Gómez and colleagues · European journal of preventive cardiology · 2023

Original title: Sleep duration and its association with adiposity markers in adolescence: a cross-sectional and longitudinal study.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

Compared with 8-10 h sleepers, those under 7 h had overweight or obesity ratios of 1.30 at 12 years, 1.93 at 14 and 1.32 at 16. Those never meeting sleep advice had about 5 times more.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
1,216 people · Spanish adolescents followed at ages 12, 14 and 16
What was tested
Sleep under 7 h and 7 to under 8 h compared with 8 to 10 h, measured by 7-day wrist sensor
What it measured
The question itself: death, heart disease and other health outcomes
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No conflict of interest declared.
Journal
European journal of preventive cardiology, 2023
Source
PubMed record 37140006. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Shows a link, not a cause: people chose their own habits, and other differences between them may explain the result.
  • ✓Followed people over time, so habits were recorded before the outcome happened.
  • •1,216 people.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: death, heart disease and other health outcomes.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: death and chronic disease

    0

    Not done yet. This is the step that would answer the question.

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    1

    1 benefit

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  4. Population studies

    11

    5 benefit, 4 mixed, 2 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  5. Blood levels and genes

    1

    1 benefit

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “How much sleep do adults need for good health?”

Lowest risk at about 7 hours.

Confidence: low. Based on 22 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 10 papers on the same step: 4 benefit, 4 mixed, 2 no difference. This one found benefit.

Other papers on the same step

See all 22 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The reviewer corrected 1 field after reading the abstract. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
Not yet. Required before search engines may list this page.

Spot an error? Email a flag with a link to your source, or use the form on the question page.