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TOPLINE:

Healthy sleep patterns were associated with lower risks for liver cancer and lung cancer. A novel sleep proteomic score comprising 303 plasma proteins further strengthened these findings, linking healthy sleep to a reduced risk for multiple gastrointestinal cancers.

METHODOLOGY:

• Growing evidence links poor sleep health with a higher risk for cancer, and emerging proteomic technologies now offer new ways to uncover biological pathways and biomarkers underlying this association.
• Researchers analyzed data from 472,105 eligible participants in the UK Biobank to construct a sleep health score derived from five sleep-related traits (sleep duration, chronotype, insomnia, snoring, and daytime sleepiness); the score was categorized as healthy (≥ 4), intermediate (2-3), or poor (≤ 1).
• Using data from 52,920 participants with 2911 plasma protein measurements, the researchers developed protein signatures for the overall sleep score and its five components by repeatedly training models on 70% of the sample and validating them in the remaining 30%.
• Associations of sleep scores and proteomic signatures with the risk for incident cancer (particularly gastrointestinal cancer) were assessed, with multivariable adjustment for demographic, lifestyle, and clinical factors as well as family history.

TAKEAWAY:

• A healthy sleep score was associated with reduced risks for liver cancer (hazard ratio [HR], 0.64; 95% CI, 0.49-0.84) and lung cancer (HR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.76-0.98) compared with a poor sleep score.
• Between 578 and 2042 plasma proteins were associated with the overall sleep score and the five individual sleep components; the overall sleep proteomic score comprised 303 proteins and showed highly significant validation in the testing set (Pearson r, 0.24; P < .00000001).
• Compared with individuals in the lowest tertile, those in the highest tertile of sleep proteomic score had reduced risks for esophageal cancer (HR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.44-0.98), stomach cancer (HR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.27-0.76), colorectal cancer (HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.59-0.87), liver cancer (HR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.16-0.52), gallbladder cancer (HR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.22-0.94), and pancreatic cancer (HR, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.30-0.74).

IN PRACTICE:

“These findings highlight the potential of proteomic biomarkers in elucidating the relationship between sleep health and cancer risk,” the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Yangyang Liu, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City. It was presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2026 in Chicago.

LIMITATIONS:

This study did not mention any limitations.

DISCLOSURES:

No funding details or conflicts of interest were provided for the study.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.