TRPV1 is a risk factor for sleep disturbance in patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease: a case control study

Abstract

Background/aims

Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) is a chronic high-morbidity disease with a bidirectional relationship with sleep disturbance (SD) that may occur via the transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 receptor (TRPV1) in the oesophageal mucosa. Yet the related mechanism was still unclear, the aim of this study is to investigate whether TRPV1 is associated with the presence of SD in GORD patients.

Methods

A case-control study was performed. After the screening, A total of 88 subjects were assigned to GORD without sleep disturbance (GORD + NOSD, n = 28), GORD comorbid sleep disturbance (GORD + SD, n = 30) and matched healthy controls (n = 30). Mucosal tissue was obtained from the participants by digestive endoscopy, the levels of TRPV1 expressed in the oesophageal mucosa were detected via RT-qPCR and western blot in different groups, and the correlation between GORD and SD were also analysed.

Results

In this study, we found that the Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Diagnostic Questionnaire (GerdQ) scores was positively correlated with Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scores but negatively correlated with total sleep time (TST). We also found that the level of TRPV1 expressed in the oesophageal mucosa of GORD + SD was significantly higher than GORD + NOSD patients, and they were all higher than healthy controls.

Conclusion

The current study suggested a closer link exists between GORD and sleep disturbance, and TRPV1 in oesophageal mucosa may be a crucial factor affecting sleep in GORD patients.

Keywords:

• Oesophagus
• gastro-oesophageal reflux disease
• TRPV1
• sleep disturbances
• polysomnography

Acknowledgements

We gratefully thank all the participants for their kindness and willingness to be enrolled in present study.

Authors contributions

ZL, YJ and LR initiated and designed this study. DL, LX, LC and JH performed case collection. LX and DL performed gastroscopy and sampling. DW and GW performed PSG and data analysis. ZL and DL performed the western blot and RT-qPCR. DL, HS, XZ and ZL wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Ethical approval

This trial was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Ningbo First Hospital (approval number: 2017-R042) and pre-registered appropriately (registration number: ChiCTR1800015667). All procedures were implemented in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments. All patients signed an informed consent form before the start of the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets obtained and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Medical and Health Science and Technology Plan Project of Zhejiang Province (2017KY136, 2019KY163, 2022KY1099, 2023RC258), Key Laboratory of Precision Medicine for Atherosclerotic Diseases of Zhejiang Province (2022E10026), Ningbo Branding Subject Fund (PPXK2018-04), Ningbo Soft Science Foundation (2022R033), Ningbo key scientific research projects (2022Z145) and Ningbo Natural Science Foundation (2022J207).