The results show that IBD patients have significant sleep disturbance even when their disease is not active. This problem might affect quality of life, gastrointestinal symptoms and coping ability, and might potentially modify disease severity or increase risk of flare-up. Regardless of the primary or secondary origin of this problem, sleep disturbance should be addressed in the clinical management of patients with IBD.

Sleep is vital to health and quality of life while sleep abnormalities are associated with adverse health consequences. Nevertheless, sleep problems are not generally considered by clinicians in the management of chronic inflammatory conditions (CIC) such as asthma, RA, SLE and IBD. To determine whether this practice is justified, we reviewed the literature on sleep and chronic inflammatory diseases, including effects of sleep on immune system and inflammation. We found that a change in the sleep-wake cycle is often one of the first responses to acute inflammation and infection and that the reciprocal effect of sleep on the immune system in acute states is often protective and restorative. For example, slow wave sleep can attenuate proinflammatory immune responses while sleep deprivation can aggravate those responses. The role of sleep in CIC is not well explored. We found a substantial body of published evidence that sleep disturbances can worsen the course of CIC, aggravate disease symptoms such as pain and fatigue, and increase disease activity and lower quality of life. The mechanism underlying these effects probably involves dysregulation of the immune system. All this suggests that managing sleep disturbances should be considered as an important factor in the overall management of CIC.

Background:There is an increased prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms, peptic ulcer disease, and colon cancer in night-shiftworkers, whose sleep is commonly disrupted. Sleep complaints are an extrapyramidal symptom of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Sleep disruption may contribute to increased medical morbidity by weakening the ability of the immune system to protect against endotoxins-this pathway could be of potential importance to the pathogenesis and/or clinical course of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a chronic immunoinflammatory gastrointestinal disorder associated with marked reductions in quality of life. This is the first study to comprehensively examine sleep concerns in patients with IBD. Methods: Sixteen patients with biopsy-proven inactive IBD (8 with Crohn disease and 8 with ulcerative colitis), 9 patients with IBS, and 7 healthy controls completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire, SF-12, and a single overnight polysomnogram. Polysomnography and arousals were scored according to standard criteria. Multivariate analyses were used to compare subjective and objective sleep parameters between groups and to identify associations between sleep complaints and quality of life. Results: Patients with IBD did not seem to significantly differ from patients with IBS, who have established sleep complaints. On polysomnography, total sleep time differentiated the 3 groups well, with the IBS and IBD groups appearing numerically similar. Whereas IBS and IBD groups were similar with respect to observed sleep parameters, IBS patients did report the most concerns, consistent with earlier research suggesting that hyperarousal and perceptual differences may contribute to symptom reporting. Conclusion: Sleep parameters greatly influenced quality of life in both groups and highlight the need to address sleep concerns as part of IBD management.

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