Association between weekend catch-up sleep and dyslipidemia among Korean workers

Within competitive sociocultural environments, most Korean workers are likely to shorten their sleep duration during the weekday. Short sleep duration is associated with dyslipidemia; however, studies on the correlation between various sleep patterns and dyslipidemia are still lacking. In hence this study aimed to investigate the association between weekend catch-up sleep (CUS) and dyslipidemia among South Korean workers. Our study used data from the 8th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). The analysis covered 4,085 participants, excluding those who were diagnosed with dyslipidemia and not currently participating in economic activities. Weekend CUS was calculated as the absolute difference between self-reported weekday and weekend sleep duration. Dyslipidemia was diagnosed based on the levels of total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and triglycerides in blood samples collected after 9–12 h of fasting. After adjusting for sociodemographic, economic, health-related, and sleep-related factors, a negative association of weekend CUS with dyslipidemia was observed in male workers (odds ratio: 0.76, 95% confidence interval: 0.61–0.95). Further, workers with total sleep duration of 7–8 h, night workers, and white-collar workers with CUS were at relatively low risk of dyslipidemia compared to the non-CUS group. Less than 2 h of weekend CUS was negatively related to dyslipidemia in Korean workers, especially males. This suggests that sleeping more on weekends for workers who had a lack of sleep during the week can help prevent dyslipidemia.