Effects of exercise and dietary interventions on serum metabolites in men with insomnia symptoms: A 6-month randomized controlled trial

Xiaobo Zhang; Xiuqiang Wang; Shenglong Le; Xiaowei Ojanen; Xiao Tan; Petri Wiklund; Sulin Cheng

doi:10.1016/j.smhs.2020.05.002

Effects of exercise and dietary interventions on serum metabolites in men with insomnia symptoms: A 6-month randomized controlled trial

Sports Med Health Sci. 2020 May 22;2(2):95-101. doi: 10.1016/j.smhs.2020.05.002. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Authors

Xiaobo Zhang^{1

2

3}, Xiuqiang Wang^{2

3}, Shenglong Le^{2

3

4}, Xiaowei Ojanen^{1

2}, Xiao Tan⁵, Petri Wiklund^{2

3}, Sulin Cheng^{2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
² Key Laboratory of Systems Biomedicine Ministry of Education, and Exercise Translational Medicine Center, Shanghai Center for Systems Biomedicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
³ Exercise, Health, and Technology Center, Department of Physical Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
⁵ Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

Abstract

Accumulating evidence show that exercise and diet interventions are associated with improved sleep quality. Studies investigating the effects of exercise and dieting on circulating metabolomics in people with sleep disorders, particularly insomnia, are scarce. This 6-month randomized study aimed to assess the effects of exercise and dietary interventions on serum metabolites in men with insomnia symptoms. Seventy-two Finnish men (age: 51.6 ± 10.1 years) with chronic insomnia symptoms who were assigned to different intervention groups completed this study (exercise, n = 24; diet, n = 27; and control, n = 21). The Shapiro-Wilk W-test, Levene test, Spearman correlation analysis, and analysis of variance were used for data analysis. We found that exercise and diet intervention were associated with improved sleep quality and with a number of metabolites across different biochemical pathways. Although we could not show causality, our findings provide new insight into the biological mechanisms underlying the health effects of physical activity, diet, and sleep quality. Further investigation is needed to better understand the link among lifestyle, sleep quality, and metabolic health.

Keywords: (O)PLS-DA, (orthogonal) partial least-squares-discriminant analysis; 3-HB, 3-hydroxybutric acid; BCAA, branched chain amino acid; BMI, body mass index; Diet; Exercise; FM, fat mass; GC, gas chromatography; Insomnia; KIC, alpha-ketoisocaproic acid; MS, mass spectrometry; Metabolomics; NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology; Q2, quartile 2; SE, sleep efficiency; SOL, sleep onset latency; TST, total sleep time; VIP, variable importance in the projection.