Effects of Tahini Intake on Quality of Sleep in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Radiotherapy: A Randomized Controlled Trial-pilot Study

Sleep disruption is a common side effect in breast cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess effects of tahini consumption on sleep quality in breast cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy.

Forty-eight women with breast cancer undergoing radiotherapy were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. In the intervention group, daily tahini consumption included 48 g during the radiation therapy course (five weeks). Patients completed Pittsburg sleep quality index questionnaires in the baseline and after the finish of radiotherapy. Chi-square, t-test, Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon and Binary logistic regression analyses were carried out.

Mean (standard deviation) age of the participants was 47.97 y ±10.65. Moreover, 50% of the patients in tahini group and 80.8% of the patients in control group had poor sleep qualities (p = 0/02). Overall, tahini consumption significantly improved the total score of sleep quality, compared to the control group (p = 0/006). Moreover, significant differences were seen between the two groups in most subscales, including subjective sleep quality (p = 0/008), sleep latency (p = 0/01), sleep duration (p = 0/003) and sleep disturbances (p = 0/05). Moreover, the mean changes in the scale of sleep disturbances showed statistically significant differences between the two groups (p = 0.002). The intervention group had lower odds ratios for the subscales of subjective sleep quality (p = 0.01), sleep latency (p = 0.01), sleep duration (p = 0.006), sleep disturbances (p = 0.04) and total score of sleep quality (p = 0.007), compared to the control group.

These results have shown that tahini consumption during radiotherapy increases the quality of sleep in patients with breast cancer.