Researchers at Pharmavite, the company behind the Nature’s Made dietary supplements brand, analyzed responses from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) taken between 2005 and 2015 to observe how Americans eat, and how they sleep.
Based on the responses of about 26,000 US adults surveyed, they found that many Americans get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep, and those that are sleeping less tend to not consume the recommended amounts of important vitamins and minerals.
Specifically, they found a strong correlation between length and quality of sleep and the amounts of vitamins A, D, and B1 an adult in the US consumes. They also observed the correlation when it comes to not consuming enough of the minerals magnesium, niacin, calcium, zinc, and phosphorus.
There were other nutrients important to the diet which did not have strong correlations with sleep quality, namely iron, selenium, and protein, said Chioma Ikonte, PhD, director of nutrition science at Pharmavite.
Dr Ikonte presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Baltimore earlier this month.
"Whether chronic short sleep causes nutrient insufficiency or the nutrient insufficiency causes short sleep still needs to be determined," said Ikonte. "A clinical study that investigates [impacts of] supplementation with these nutrients on sleep outcomes is needed to demonstrate cause and effect."
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