Abstract Title Retrospective Study of the Relationship between Daily Oral Multivitamin Intake and Sleep Complaints in Post-Menopausal Women – An Analysis of NHANES Data (1999-2020)

Background This study investigates whether daily oral multivitamin intake affects sleep patterns and sleep complaints in post-menopausal women. The hypothesis is that daily multivitamin intake may improve sleep quality in this demographic.

Methods Data from the NHANES surveys (1999-2020) were analyzed to study the relationship between multivitamin use and sleep complaints. Dietary supplement usage, menopause status, and sleep data were extracted and pre-processed. Participants were categorized into two groups: those who took daily multivitamins and those who did not. Post-menopausal status was identified, and relevant sleep data from 2005-2020 was included. The final sample comprised 1,647 post-menopausal women who took daily multivitamins and 2,643 who did not.

The primary variable of interest was hours of sleep per night (SLD010/12). Outliers were removed, and the Shapiro-Wilk test was conducted to assess normality. Due to non-normal distributions (p < 0.05), the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the sleep duration between groups.

The secondary variable was sleep complaints (SLQ050), evaluated using a Chi-Square test of independence to assess the association between multivitamin use and reported sleep troubles. A post-hoc Fisher’s Exact test was also performed to confirm the significance of the findings.

Results The analysis revealed that post-menopausal women who took daily multivitamins had a significantly higher mean sleep duration (7.289 hours) compared to those who did not take multivitamins (6.946 hours), with a median of 7.0 hours for both groups. The Mann-Whitney U test indicated a significant difference in sleep duration between the groups (Z = -6.754, p < 0.001). Additionally, there was a significant association between multivitamin use and reported sleep troubles, with the Chi-Square test showing (Χ² (1) = 4.167, p = .041) and the Fisher’s Exact test confirming a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001). These findings suggest that while multivitamin intake may increase sleep duration, it is also associated with a higher incidence of reported sleep troubles among post-menopausal women.

Conclusion Daily multivitamin use may increase the number of sleep hours per night but is also associated with reported sleep troubles. These findings highlight the importance of discussing multivitamin use with healthcare providers for post-menopausal women. Further research should consider additional confounding factors and the broader implications of multivitamin use on sleep quality.