EXPERTS in a new study have warned that exposure to tobacco smoke among non-smokers can disrupt sleep quality and overall quality of life, calling for culturally relevant interventions for mitigating exposure to secondhand smoke, particularly among vulnerable populations who are often women and children.
In the study, researchers found a deleterious relationship between secondhand smoke exposures due to smoke from burning any tobacco product(s) or being exhaled by a person who smokes any form of tobacco product and sleep quality among adults who had never smoked in Ibadan.
Researchers in the study published in the 2024 edition of the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health found that exposure to secondhand smoke was associated with a higher possibility of poor sleep quality, regardless of sex or age.
The study was entitled “Association of secondhand smoking with sleep quality among adults in Ibadan, Nigeria: a cross-sectional evaluation of data from the Community-Based Investigation of the Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Diseases in the Ibadan and suburbs (COMBAT-CVDs) study.”
In this study, the association of secondhand smoking with sleep quality was attenuated by lifestyle factors, including current alcohol use and physical activity, among those aged 50 and above.
For the study, the researchers identified 3193 respondents who had never smoked or used any form of tobacco product in the COMBAT-CVDs study in a lifetime. Secondhand smoking was self-reported, and sleep quality was assessed using a standard sleep quality scale.
The study could not assess secondhand smoking exposure in outdoor environments, the immediate and long-term factors associated with living environments, and several factors, such as food consumption, timing, and work style (night-time shift), among others, that influence sleep quality.
They, therefore, draw attention to the vitality of culturally sensitive interventions against secondhand smoke exposure among vulnerable populations to prevent its potential impact on the health and well-being of people living in similar settings across Africa and other resource-limited settings.
They suggested that the observed association might be due to the well-documented potential of nicotine from tobacco in activating hormones that promote sleep latency and short sleep as well as trigger sleeping-related breathing problems.
Good sleep is central to quality of life and general health outcomes, and poor sleep has been linked to various health consequences. Also, an hour of sleep deprivation is associated with a six percent relative risk of total cardiovascular diseases, and a short sleep duration greater than five hours per night has been linked to a 12 percent risk of death.
Individuals should avoid inhaling smoke from burning any tobacco product in the indoor environment and, where possible, the outdoor environment as a potential lifestyle modification strategy to prevent poor sleep quality.
