An open request to epidemiologists: Please stop querying self-reported sleep duration

A recent epidemiology study1 contains the latest in a long series of U-shaped relationships2-5 describing/linking a health problem with self-reported sleep duration: the outcome of interest (in this case, visual impairment), worsens as self-reported sleep duration deviates from the referent value (typically 7+1 hours). In an era where we contemplate whether AHI is the right metric for sleep apnea6, how to integrate new information on sleep electrophysiology into our legacy scoring systems (or whether positive airway pressure (PAP) is effective or even dangerous7,8), should we not also reasonably wonder: how can mechanistically useful or clinically actionable information be contained in cross-sectional self-reported sleep duration? Sleep duration seems like a natural thing to ask about, and it would seem that adult patients could provide an approximation.

http://ift.tt/2lTITjz