Five hours of sleep leads to chronic diseases: scientists told about the risks

The consequences of the cult of efficiency that reigned in the eighties and nineties and forced people to sacrifice many important things, such as sleep for career success, scientists are still sorting out. A recent study, which began just in the late eighties, showed that sleeping less than five hours every night provokes the development of a mass of chronic diseases.

According to the Canadian edition of CTV News, the results of the study were published the other day in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Medicine. The study included more than 7,000 participants aged 50, 60 and 70. Researchers found that people in their sixth decade who regularly slept just five hours or even less were 40 percent more likely to develop two or more chronic diseases over the past 25 years compared to people who slept about seven hours a night. .

According to Severina Sabia of the Institute of Epidemiology and Health at University College London, who was the lead author of the study, people's sleep habits and patterns change as they age. But the recommendation to sleep at least 7 hours every night is the same for all ages.

The researcher also pointed out that preliminary studies had already established that sleeping too short and too long may be associated with certain chronic diseases. A new paper published recently in the United States found that people who slept less than seven hours had a higher risk of developing heart disease. And poor sleep is common among Americans.

At the same time, Sabia and her team decided to determine whether there was a link between less sleep and the risk of developing multiple chronic diseases. And they found that such a pattern did exist. Scientifically, this is called multimorbidity - when two or more chronic diseases occur simultaneously.

"Multimorbidity is on the rise in high-income countries, and more than half of seniors now have at least two chronic conditions. This is proving to be a major public health problem because multimorbidity is associated with high health care utilization, hospitalization and disability," Sabia said.

According to the study's methodology, the researchers took data from previous work containing information on more than 10,000 people working in the London offices of the British civil service at the beginning of the data collection phase in 1985. Participants were then asked to talk about their health status and how it changed with age. Specifically, participants told how much they slept. They reported this about six times between 1985 and 2016. The researchers examined the data and isolated data on sleep duration from participants when they were 50, 60 and 70 years old. In all, they were able to get this information from about 7,000 people.

This information was compared with information about the subjects' chronic diseases. They also took into account when they developed. Diseases of interest included diabetes, cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, depression, dementia, Parkinson's disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and arthritis.

In people in their 50s, sleeping less than 5 hours was associated with a 20% increased risk of identifying one chronic disease compared with those who slept fully. Overall, those who regularly slept five hours or less at ages 50, 60, and 70 had a 30-40% higher risk of multimorbidity than people who slept about seven hours a night.

The study also found that those who reported little sleep at age 50 had a 25 percent higher risk of dying at some point during the 25-year follow-up period. This may be associated with an increased risk of chronic disease. As the scientists explained, they increase mortality rates.

However, this conclusion was not the only result of the researchers' work. So it was found that among those who sleep more than 9 hours a night, problems usually occur when they are 60-70 years old. Although they may develop earlier. At the same time, such a link could not be established in healthy people aged 50 years.

The researchers suggest that if participants already had one chronic disease at age 50, those who slept long hours had a 35% increased risk of developing another disease. This was probably related to the underlying health condition.

Based on the results of her work, Sabia advised people to observe sleep hygiene. Sleep in a quiet and dark room with optimal temperature, don't overuse electronic gadgets before bedtime and don't eat too much at night. In addition, she advised exercising and exposing oneself to daylight, which also promotes good sleep.

As reported by OBOZREVATEL, there are five foods that interfere with healthy sleep - it is better to avoid them before you go to bed.