Childhood sleep health and epigenetic age acceleration in late adolescence: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses

Abstract

Aim: Investigate if childhood measures of sleep health are associated with epigeneticage acceleration in late adolescence.Methods: Parent-reported sleep trajectories from age 5 to 17, self-reported sleepproblems at age 17, and six measures of epigenetic age acceleration at age 17 werestudied in 1192 young Australians from the Raine Study Gen2.Results: There was no evidence for a relationship between the parent-reportedsleep trajectories and epigenetic age acceleration (p ≥ 0.17). There was a positivecross-sectional relationship between self-reported sleep problem score and intrin-sic epigenetic age acceleration at age 17 (b = 0.14, p = 0.04), which was attenuatedafter controlling for depressive symptom score at the same age (b = 0.08, p = 0.34).Follow-up analyses suggested this finding may represent greater overtiredness andintrinsic epigenetic age acceleration in adolescents with higher depressive symptoms.Conclusion: There was no evidence for a relationship between self- or parent-reportedsleep health and epigenetic age acceleration in late adolescence after adjusting for de -pressive symptoms. Mental health should be considered as a potential confoundingvariable in future research on sleep and epigenetic age acceleration, particularly ifsubjective measures of sleep are used.