Exploring the causal effects of sleep characteristics on TMD-related pain: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

The study was to explore the causal effects of sleep characteristics on temporomandibular disorder (TMD)-related pain using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

Five sleep characteristics (short sleep, insomnia, chronotype, snoring, sleep apnea) were designated as exposure factors. Data were obtained from previous publicized genome-wide association studies and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) strongly associated with them were utilized as instrumental variables (IVs). TMD-related pain was designed as outcome variable and sourced from the FinnGens database. MR analysis was employed to explore the causal effects of the five sleep characteristics on TMD-related pain. The causal effect was analyzed using the inverse variance-weighted (IVW), weighted median, and MR-Egger methods. Subsequently, sensitivity analyses were conducted using Cochran’s Q tests, funnel plots, leave-one-out analyses, and MR-Egger intercept tests.

A causal effect of short sleep on TMD-related pain was revealed by IVW (OR: 1.60, 95% CI: 1.06–2.41, P = 0.026). No causal relationship was identified between other sleep characteristics (insomnia, chronotype, snoring, sleep apnea) and TMD-related pain.

Our study suggests that short sleep may increase the risk of TMD-related pain, while there was no causal relationship between other sleep characteristics and TMD-related pain. Further studies are warranted to deepen and definitively clarify their relationship.

These findings reveal that the short sleep may be a risk factor of TMD-related pain and highlight the potential therapeutical effect of extending sleep time on alleviating TMD-related pain.