New York : Short and poor quality of sleep may worsen kidney function in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), says a study.

“Short sleep and fragmented sleep are significant yet unappreciated risk factors for CKD progression,” said one of the researchers, Ana Ricardo, from the University of Illinois at Chicago in the US.

“Our research adds to the accumulating knowledge regarding the importance of sleep on kidney function, and underscores the need to design and test clinical interventions to improve sleep habits in individuals with CKD,” she added.

Although there is increasing evidence that sleep disorders are common in individuals with CKD, its link with CKD progression is unknown.

To investigate, Ricardo and her colleagues examined the sleep patterns of 432 adults with chronic kidney disease. Participants wore a wrist monitor for five to seven days to measure sleep duration and quality, and their health was followed for a median of five years.

Participants slept an average of 6.5 hours/night, and during follow-up, 70 individuals developed kidney failure and 48 individuals died.

The researchers calculated that each additional hour of nighttime sleep was linked with a 19 per cent lower risk of developing kidney failure.

There was also a significant association between sleep quality and kidney failure risk – each one per cent increase in sleep fragmentation was linked with a four per cent increase in the risk of developing kidney failure.

Also, patients who experienced daytime sleepiness were 10 per cent more likely to die during follow-up than those who were not sleepy during the day, said the study presented at American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Kidney Week 2016 at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois.