Teenagers who prefer to stay up late and wake later in the morning are more likely to suffer with asthma and allergies compared to those who sleep and wake earlier, according to a new study.

Asthma symptoms are known to be strongly linked to the body’s internal clock, but this is the first study to look at how individual sleep preferences influence asthma risk in teenagers.

Researchers say the study reinforces the importance of sleep timing for teenagers and opens up a new channel of research in to how sleep affects teenagers’ respiratory health.

The study was led by Dr Subhabrata Moitra from the division of pulmonary medicine at the University of Alberta, Canada, who carried out the research while at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Spain. He said: «Asthma and allergic diseases are common in children and adolescents across the world and the prevalence is increasing. We know some of the reasons for this increase, such as exposure to pollution and tobacco smoke, but we still need to find out more.

«Sleep and the ‘sleep hormone’ melatonin are known to influence asthma, so we wanted to see if adolescents’ preference for staying up late or going to bed early could be involved in their asthma risk.»

The study involved 1,684 adolescents living in West Bengal, India, aged 13 or 14 years, who were taking part in the Prevalence and Risk Factors of Asthma and Allergy-Related Diseases among Adolescents (PERFORMANCE) study.

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