The Association Among Dietary Taurine Intake, Obesity and Quality of Sleep in Korean Women

Abstract

Obesity is an important risk factor for various diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. High quality sleep is essential to aid physical recovery and maintain health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between dietary taurine intake, obesity, and quality of sleep. The subjects were 16 Korean women in the age group of 30–54 years. Body composition was measured using Inbody 720 and blood lipid profiles were analyzed after 12 h-fasting blood collection. Dietary taurine and nutrient intake were surveyed by the 3-day recall method and ‘the Korean sleep scale A questionnaire’ was used to assess quality of sleep. A higher sleep score indicated higher quality of sleep. According to the results of this study, women with higher body mass index (BMI) tended to have a lower total quality of sleep. A higher BMI showed significant correlation with higher level of blood total-cholesterol. A positive correlation was also observed between dietary taurine intake and the total sleep score. In particular, positive correlations were observed between dietary taurine intake and sleep scores for questions including ‘take a long time to fall asleep (p < 0.05)’, ‘difficult to fall asleep again during fitful sleep (p < 0.05)’, and ‘continuously sleepy in the morning (p < 0.05)’. No significant correlation was observed between intake of other nutrients and quality of sleep. These results suggest that obesity might be related to a lower total quality of sleep and that dietary taurine intake may increase the quality of sleep. Further conduct of a large-scale study or case-control study is needed in order to clarify the relationship between dietary taurine, obesity, and the quality of sleep.