The relationship between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and overall sleep quality in the adult population with asthma

Previous basic studies have shown that high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) has anti-inflammatory effects that protect against asthma. Our study was aimed at examining the association between blood lipid levels and sleep quality in the adult population with asthma. We evaluated the blood lipid levels and sleep scores of 1013 adult participants in the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study to investigate the association of lipid levels with overall sleep quality using linear regression models in subjects with asthma and without asthma, respectively. In a total of 1013 participants (with asthma = 127 and without asthma = 886) included in our study, participants with asthma had poor sleep quality, compared with participants without asthma. Moreover, our smooth curves suggested that blood HDL-C and triglyceride levels, rather than total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), were significantly associated with global sleep score. Multivariate correction models were used to further evaluate blood lipid profiles and the overall sleep quality. We observed that only blood HDL-C levels were still negatively and independently associated with global sleep score in participants with asthma (S beta = - 0.224, 95% CI - 0.448, - 0.001, P = 0.049) but not in participants without asthma (S beta = - 0.016, 95% CI - 0.087, 0.055, P = 0.656) in Model 3 after adjusting for age, gender, ever smoker, number of drinking years, exercise and body mass index (BMI). Obviously, asthma had a modification effect on the independent association (P interaction = 0.022). Our study suggested that elevated blood HDL-C levels are associated with a reduced risk for poor sleep quality in the adult population with asthma but not in those without asthma.