The associations of blood volatile organic compounds with sleep health in the American adults: Data from NHANES 2007-2012

Abstract

Abstract Background Unhealthy sleep health has become a rising public health epidemic, and environmental issues have become a burgeoning orientation to probe into the factors affecting sleep health. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), common organic pollutants in the air, were connected with some somatic diseases, while whether VOCs exposure or which VOCs lead to sleep abnormality was yet explored so far. Methods We analyzed blood content data of five VOCs (LBXVBF, blood bromoform; LBXVBM, blood bromodichloromethane; LBXVCF, blood chloroform; LBXVCM, blood dibromochloromethane; LBXVME, blood MTBE) reported for 5740 adults in NHANES 2007–2012. Sleep health categories, including trouble sleeping, sleep disorder, and insufficient (<6 h/day) or excessive (>9 h/day) sleep, were examined. Weighted multiple linear/logistic regression models were constructed to estimate the linear associations of VOCs exposure with sleep health. As for survival analysis of different VOCs related with individual survival outcomes, we selected the weighted multivariate COX regression model to assess. To explore the non-linear association between variables, restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression analysis was carried out. Moreover, three adjustment regression modeling strategies were utilized to evaluate the VOCs effect on sleep health. Results According to the adjusted linear RCS regression model, it is reported that the U-shaped nonlinear relationship between blood VOCs (LBXVBM: P-overall = 0.0284; LBXVCM: P-overall = 0.0321) and sleep duration. The fully adjusted logistic RCS model revealed that LBXVBM, LBXVCM and LBXVCF all displayed statistically significant U-shaped curves in trouble sleep and insufficient sleep groups (P-overall < 0.05). The adjusted COX-RCS analysis results revealed that the LBXVME (p-overall = 0.0359) was risk factor for all-cause mortality. Conclusions There was a negative non-linear association between specific blood VOCs and sleep health among U.S. adults, and this adverse effect was mainly manifested in trouble sleeping and prolonged sleep duration. Moreover, the results of survival analysis showed that environmental VOCs exposure could induce adverse survival outcomes. Future prospective longitudinal studies should be conducted to further investigate and determine the degree of the association between VOCs and sleep health.