Sleep less than 5 hours and the risk of 37 diseases

A large study shows that sleeping less than 5 hours is associated with a higher risk of dozens of diseases, including 37 specific ones.

Researchers have found that lack of sleep is associated with an increased risk of a wide and significant range of diseases and health problems.

According to Ferraro, cited by SiteTechDaily, in a large study that followed nearly 100,000 adults for almost 9 years, it was found that sleeping less than five hours a night is associated with a higher risk of dozens of diseases. The analysis also showed that people who spend more time in REM (rapid eye movement) and deep sleep stages are less at risk of developing several important diseases; A topic that suggests that both "sleep duration" and "sleep structure" can be related to long-term health.

Researchers analyzed data from 95,559 participants in the UK Biobank; Those who had continuously used wrist accelerometer sensors for seven days and nights. A deep learning algorithm estimated parameters such as total sleep time, REM sleep, deep sleep, light sleep, rate of wakefulness after sleep onset, as well as the rate of changes in sleep patterns from night to night.

More REM sleep is associated with a lower risk of developing diseases

More REM sleep was associated with lower rates of 83 types of diseases. For every 47.6 more minutes of REM sleep, during the follow-up period, the risk of heart failure was 26%, the risk of dementia (dementia) was 46%, and the risk of Parkinson's disease was 80% lower.

More deep sleep was also associated with a reduced risk of seven diseases and medical conditions, including type 2 diabetes and major depressive disorder. In contrast, greater nocturnal sleep disorganization (large changes in sleep patterns from night to night) and more wakefulness after falling asleep were associated with an increased risk of several conditions, including anxiety disorders and substance use disorders.

This study does not prove that these sleep patterns directly cause or prevent diseases. Since this research was of an observational type, other factors related to health, behavior or biology may also play a role in creating these relationships.

The period of six to eight hours was the index

Total sleep duration showed a non-linear relationship with many health outcomes. In most of the situations that had such a pattern, the lowest level of risk was observed in the range of six to eight hours of sleep per night.

People who slept less than five hours were the most vulnerable overall and faced a higher risk of developing 37 types of diseases or medical conditions. In all of these analyses, the researchers identified 156 statistically significant associations between sleep patterns and newly diagnosed diseases, after statistically adjusting for the large number of comparisons.

Phenome-wide association analysis, after applying the Bonferroni correction, identified 156 significant associations between sleep patterns and emerging diseases. »

The authors also reported that sleep duration had significant nonlinear associations with 86 disease phenotypes. In 69 of these cases, the duration associated with the lowest level of risk was in the same range of six to eight hours.

"Sleep duration showed significant nonlinear relationships with 86 disease phenotypes; "So that in most of these cases (69 phenotypes), the duration that brought the least risk was precisely concentrated in the 6-8 hour range."

Objective sleep tracking reveals more details

Many previous researches in the field of sleep have been based on people's own estimates of the duration and quality of their sleep. These reports do not always correspond to objective (precise and scientific) measurements; An issue that makes it difficult to investigate how specific stages of sleep and nocturnal disorders are related to health status in the future.

In this study, data from wearable devices allowed researchers to examine multiple dimensions of sleep simultaneously. Participants were followed for 8.9 years (median time) and their health records were used to measure the association with more than 1000 types of diseases.

The authors concluded that the findings support a sleep duration of about 6 to 8 hours for middle-aged and older adults; Besides, they also point to the possible role of how this duration is distributed among different stages of sleep.

The authors say: "These findings provide further evidence supporting the role of 6-8 hours of sleep as a health-preserving factor in middle-aged and older adults; This is probably due to a more favorable distribution of sleep stages. Maintaining a sleep duration of 6 to 8 hours can effectively reduce the risk of various diseases and provide new insights for health promotion and preventive measures.