Abstract
Study Objectives
To investigate the association between sleep duration and breast cancer incidence, we examined the association in a large UK prospective study and conducted a meta-analysis of prospective studies.
Methods
In the Million Women Study, usual sleep duration over a 24-h period was collected in 2001 for 713,150 participants without prior cancer, heart problems, stroke, or diabetes (mean age = 60 years). Follow-up for breast cancer was by record linkage to national cancer registry data for 14.3 years on average from the 3-year resurvey. Cox regression models yielded multivariable-adjusted breast cancer relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for sleep duration categories. Published prospective studies of sleep duration and breast cancer risk were included in a meta-analysis, which estimated the inverse-variance weighted average of study-specific log RRs for short and for long versus average duration sleep.
Results
After excluding the first 5 years to minimize reverse causation bias in the Million Women Study, 24,476 women developed breast cancer. Compared with 7–8 h of sleep, the RRs for <6, 6, 9, and >9 h of sleep were 1.01 (95% CI, 0.95–1.07), 0.99 (0.96–1.03), 1.01 (0.96–1.06), and 1.03 (0.95–1.12), respectively. In a meta-analysis of 14 prospective studies plus the Million Women Study, including 65,410 breast cancer cases, neither short (RR < 7 h = 0.99 [0.98–1.01]) nor long (RR > 8 h = 1.01 [0.98–1.04]) versus average duration sleep was associated with breast cancer risk.
Conclusions
The totality of the prospective evidence does not support an association between sleep duration and breast cancer risk.
Sleep duration and breast cancer incidence: results from the million women study and a meta-analysis of published prospective studies