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©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Nocturnal sentry duty and cardiometabolic characteristics in armed forces personnel
Yen-Po Lin, Yi-Chiung Hsu, Ko-Huan Lin, Kun-Zhe Tsai, Chen-Chih Chu, Yen-Chen Lin, Gen-Min Lin
Yen-Po Lin, Department of Critical Care Medicine, Taipei Tzu Chi General Hospital, New Taipei City 23142, Taiwan
Yen-Po Lin, Yi-Chiung Hsu, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan City 320, Taiwan
Ko-Huan Lin, Department of Psychiatry, Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, Hualien City 970, Taiwan
Kun-Zhe Tsai, Department of Stomatology of Periodontology, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei 104, Taiwan
Kun-Zhe Tsai, Department of Dentistry, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei 114, Taiwan
Chen-Chih Chu, Gen-Min Lin, Department of Medicine, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei 114, Taiwan
Yen-Chen Lin, Department of Medicine, Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan City 333, Taiwan
Gen-Min Lin, Department of Medicine, Hualien Armed Forces General Hospital, Hualien City 970, Taiwan
Author contributions: Lin YP and Hsu YC wrote the article and contributed equally; Lin KH collected the data; Tsai KZ analyzed the data; Chu CC and Yen-Chen Lin reviewed the data, edited and made critical revisions related to important intellectual content. Lin GM and Lin KH contributed to conception and design of the CHIEF Sleep study, and acquired and interpreted the data; all authors approved the final version of the article to be published.
Supported by Medical Affairs Bureau Ministry of National Defense, No. MND-MAB-D-113200 and Hualien Armed Forces General Hospital, No. HAFGH-D-113008.
Institutional review board statement: The study design was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Mennonite Christian Hospital (No. 16-05-008), Hualien City, Taiwan, and was performed in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, as revised in 2013.
Informed consent statement: All participants were informed of the protocol of this study and gave written informed consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: As the CHIEF study materials were obtained from the military in Taiwan, the data were confidential and not allowed to be opened in public. If there are any needs for clarification, the readers can contact Dr. Lin, the corresponding author, for sharing the data.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See:
https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Corresponding author: Gen-Min Lin, FACC, FAHA, FESC, MD, PhD, Academic Fellow, Chief Physician, Department of Medicine, Hualien Armed Forces General Hospital, No. 100 Jinfeng Street, Hualien City 970, Taiwan.
farmer507@yahoo.com.tw
Received: March 26, 2024
Revised: September 8, 2024
Accepted: October 8, 2024
Published online: December 26, 2024
Processing time: 245 Days and 1.8 Hours
BACKGROUND
Sleep deprivation can lead to increased body weight and blood pressure (BP), but the latent effects of partial sleep deprivation related to required night sentry duties within a short-term period on cardiometabolic characteristic changes in military personnel are unclear.
AIM
To investigate the association between night sentry duty frequency in the past 3 months and cardiometabolic characteristics in armed forces personnel.
METHODS
A total of 867 armed forces personnel who were aged 18-39 years and did not take any antihypertensive medications in Taiwan in 2020 were included. The frequency of night sentry duty was self-reported via a questionnaire (average number of night sentry shifts per month for the past 3 months). Hemodynamic status was assessed via the resting BP and pulse rate (PR). Cardiometabolic risk factors were defined according to the International Diabetes Federation criteria. Multivariable linear regression analyses of the associations between night sentry duties and PR, BP, and other metabolic syndrome (MetS) marker levels were performed, with adjustments for age, sex, substance use, body mass index and aerobic fitness. Multiple logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the associations between night sentry duties and the prevalence of each MetS feature.
RESULTS
There was an association between night sentry duties and PR [standardized β (standard error) = 0.505 (0.223), P =0.02], whereas there was no association with systolic and diastolic BP. In addition, there was an inverse association between night sentry duties and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels [standardized β = -0.490 (0.213), P = 0.02], whereas there was no association with the other metabolic marker levels. Compared with personnel without night sentry duties, those with ≥ 1 night sentry shift/month had a greater risk of impaired fasting glucose (≥ 100 mg/dL) [odds ratio: 1.415 (confidence interval: 1.016-1.969)], whereas no associations with other MetS features were found.
CONCLUSION
Among military personnel, the burden of night sentry duty was positively associated with the resting PR but inversely associated with HDL-C levels. In addition, personnel with partial sleep deprivation may have a greater risk of impaired fasting glucose than those without partial sleep deprivation.
Core Tip: This study examined the associations between the mean frequency of night sentry duty in the past 3 months and cardiometabolic characteristics in armed forces personnel. We found an association between the frequency of night sentry duty and pulse rate [PR, standardized β (standard error) = 0.505 (0.223), P = 0.02] and an inverse association with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels [standardized β = -0.490 (0.213), P = 0.02], whereas there was no association with systolic or diastolic blood pressure or other metabolic biomarker levels. In addition, personnel with ≥ 1 night shift/month had a greater risk of impaired fasting glucose. In conclusion, the latent effects of partial sleep deprivation in military personnel may increase the resting PR and lead to metabolic abnormalities.
