Table Salt Use and Sleep Patterns in National and Clinical Cohorts

8,440 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005–2010) and 488 patients from a clinical replication cohort provide data on table salt use, sleep patterns, and depressive symptoms. The study investigates associations between these factors, finding a 1.27 odds ratio for unhealthy sleep with frequent salt use in the national sample. Mediation analyses indicate depressive symptoms accounted for 43.1% to 55.8% of the observed statistical association.

Use Cases

• Analyze the association between table salt use frequency and the composite unhealthy sleep pattern score across two distinct cohorts.
• Perform mediation analysis to quantify the indirect effect of depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) on the salt-sleep relationship.
• Conduct subgroup analyses to examine vulnerability in specific populations, such as young adults aged 20–45 years.
• Replicate the statistical decomposition of associations using the reported odds ratios and confidence intervals from the dual-cohort design.

Strengths

• Dual-cohort design with 8,440 nationally representative records and an external clinical replication cohort of 488 patients.
• Analysis includes a composite sleep outcome, a specific exposure (table salt use frequency), and a potential mediator (depressive symptoms via PHQ-9).
• Study provides specific statistical metrics, including odds ratios, confidence intervals, and mediation proportions (e.g., 43.1%).

Limitations

• Cross-sectional design prevents establishing causality or temporal ordering between variables.
• Primary data is presented in a summary DOCX document (866.1 KB), limiting direct access to raw, row-level observations for re-analysis.
• The clinical replication cohort's association did not reach conventional statistical significance (p=0.052) after full adjustment.

Provenance

Source

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and Gansu Provincial People's Hospital clinical cohort.

Collection Method

Population-based survey analysis integrated with an independent external clinical replication cohort.

Time Range

NHANES data from 2005–2010.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.

Geography

United States (NHANES) and China (Gansu Province clinical cohort).