Health · Medical Research · 18 hrs ago
Sleeping Under Five Hours Linked to Higher Risk of 37 Diseases
Researchers tracked 95,559 UK Biobank participants for a median of 8.9 years and used wrist devices to measure their sleep for seven days and nights.
People who slept less than five hours a night had higher risks of 37 diseases.
For most conditions with a clear pattern, the lowest risk was linked to six to eight hours of sleep.
More time in REM sleep was associated with lower rates of several conditions, including heart failure, dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
More deep sleep was associated with lower risks of seven conditions, while irregular sleep and waking during the night were linked to higher risks of some conditions.
The study found associations, not proof that sleep patterns cause or prevent disease, and other factors may help explain the results.
Its findings add evidence about how sleep duration and sleep stages relate to health in middle-aged and older adults, but the study does not say what should happen next.
Sleeping less than five hours a night was associated with higher risk of 37 conditions in a study of nearly 100,000 UK Biobank participants.
Researchers tracked participants’ sleep with wrist accelerometers and followed their health for a median of 8.9 years.
The study also linked more REM sleep with lower rates of 83 diseases and more deep sleep with lower risk of seven conditions.
For most conditions with a nonlinear relationship to sleep duration, the lowest risk was associated with six to eight hours of sleep.
The observational study found associations, not proof that sleep patterns directly cause or prevent disease.
- Who
- Researchers analyzed 95,559 UK Biobank participants.
- What
- The study linked sleeping less than five hours a night with higher risk of 37 conditions.
- When
- Participants were followed for a median of 8.9 years.
- Where
- The participants were from the UK Biobank; a more specific location is not stated.
- Why
- The researchers examined how sleep duration and sleep patterns were associated with later disease; the study does not establish why the associations occurred.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Phenome-wide association analysis identified 156 significant associations between sleep patterns and incident diseases after Bonferroni correction.
Sleep duration exhibited significant non-linear associations with 86 disease phenotypes, with the minimum-risk duration for the majority of these conditions (69 phenotypes) precisely concentrated within a 6-8 hour window.
The findings provide additional evidence supporting the role of a 6-8 hours’ sleep duration as a health safeguard for middle-aged and older adults, likely attributable to more favorable distributions of sleep stages
Participants wore wrist accelerometers continuously to record their sleep.
Researchers followed participants and used their health records to examine disease outcomes.
- Participants
- 95,559 UK Biobank adults
- Follow-up
- Median 8.9 years
- Short sleep
- Less than five hours a night was associated with higher risk of 37 conditions
- REM sleep
- Greater REM sleep was associated with lower rates of 83 diseases
- Sleep duration
- For 69 of 86 disease phenotypes, the minimum-risk duration fell within six to eight hours
Sources
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