Fibromyalgia in Women Maybe Caused by Poor Sleeping Habits

Sleep problems are associated with an increased risk of fibromyalgia in women, especially those who are middle-aged and older, a new study says.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic musculoskeletal pain condition that affects more than 5 million adults in the United States. Women account for up to 90 percent of people with fibromyalgia, which typically begins in middle age.

Previous research has found that insomnia, nighttime awakening and fatigue are common symptoms experienced by fibromyalgia patients, but it wasn’t known if sleep problems contribute to the development of fibromyalgia.

Norwegian researchers enrolled 12,350 healthy women, 20 years and older, with no musculoskeletal pain or movement disorders and followed them for 10 years. At the end of that time, 327 (2.6 percent) of the women had developed fibromyalgia.

The study found a more than five-fold jump in the risk for fibromyalgia among women over 45 who often or always had sleep problems, and a nearly three-fold rise for women aged 20 to 44 with similar sleep woes.

The study appears online Nov. 14 in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.