Your sleep tracker might give you information about more than just your sleep–specifically, it might give you information about chronic conditions such as diabetes and sleep apnea, and illnesses such as COVID-19. This is one of the findings of a study that analyzed data from 5 million nights of sleep across roughly 33,000 people. Based on the new analyses, the researchers identified five main types of sleep, which they called sleep phenotypes, and which can be further divided into 13 subtypes.
The researchers also found that how and how often a person switches between sleep phenotypes could offer two to ten times more information relevant to detecting health conditions compared with just relying on a person's average sleep phenotype alone. The study appears in the journal npj Digital Medicine on June 20, 2024. Using data collected from Oura Ring–a smart ring that tracks sleep, skin temperature and other information–the researchers looked at individual people over a series of months, noting whether they had chronic health conditions such as diabetes and sleep apnea, or illnesses such as COVID-19 and the flu.
The research team found that people would often move between sleep phenotypes over time, reflecting a change in an individual's health conditions, and creating what resembles a person's travel log through the data-driven sleep landscape the researchers created. "We found that little changes in sleep quality helped us identify health risks. Those little changes wouldn.