Sleeping well has many health benefits as numerous scientific studies have shown, and our own experience confirms this because we spend a third of our lives sleeping and when we do not enjoy a restful sleep the next day we are tired and physically unwell, but also mentally exhausted, since we do not perform well in studies or work and it takes a lot for us to concentrate and maintain attention.
Sleep regulates functions such as cognition, mood, metabolism and immunity, and several investigations have found links between the duration of sleep – short or long – and the development of chronic disease, including cancer or diseases cardiovascular. A new study conducted by Scientists from Inserm and the Université Paris Cité has found a strong association between sleeping five hours or less per night from the age of 50 and an increased risk of developing various chronic diseases during aging.
To examine the relationship between sleep duration at ages 50, 60, and 70 and the development of chronic diseases during aging, the researchers used data from 7,864 British men and women who had been collected as part of the Whitehall II study in the University College London, and found that there was a strong association between a nightly sleep duration of five hours or less and an increased risk of multimorbidity, as published in Plos Medicine.
Short nights of sleep increase the risk of developing one or more chronic diseases, which, in turn, are associated with a shorter life expectancy
Séverine Sabia, a researcher at Inserm and lead author of the study, pointed out that previous work has shown a link between sleeping less and developing health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and dementia. “However, in real life, chronic diseases often co-exist,” he says, “particularly at older ages, and it was unclear how sleep duration was associated with multimorbidity risk.”
Too little sleep was also associated with an increased risk of death
Participants reported their sleep duration between 1985 and 2019, and one group (4,000 people) also used an accelerometer for one week, allowing for an accurate measurement of sleep duration and confirming the accuracy of the estimates. These data were crossed with others on the health status of the participants that were obtained during their follow-up until March 2019. The team of scientists analyzed the link between the duration of sleep at different ages, its evolution between 50 and 70 years , and the risk of the appearance of multimorbidity.
The first results suggest that there is an important association between short sleep duration (less than or equal to five hours) at ages 50, 60 and 70 years and an increased risk of multimorbidity; Specifically, at age 50, those who slept five hours or less had a 20% increased risk of developing a first chronic disease and a 30% increased risk of multimorbidity, compared to those who slept seven hours. At 60, those who slept five hours or less had a 32% increased risk of multimorbidity, and at 70 a 40% increased risk, compared with those who slept seven hours a night.
These findings could explain the increased risk of death of about 25% that was seen in people in their 50s whose sleep duration was less than or equal to five hours per night. In fact, the researchers found that short nights of sleep increase the risk of developing one or more chronic diseases, which, in turn, are associated with shorter life expectancy.
“All of these results support the importance of promoting good sleep hygiene in populations. For this, it is necessary to target lifestyle habits and environmental conditions that affect the duration and quality of sleep”, concludes Séverine Sabia.
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