Think you can survive on five hours of sleep per night? Although it might be possible, it could put you at higher risk of developing multiple chronic diseases and earlier death, according to a new study. Investigators found that adults ages 50 and older who slept for five hours or less per night had a greater risk of developing more than one chronic disease when compared with their peers who sleep seven hours. The findings were published October 18 in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.
“Our study showed that sleep five hours or less is associated with 30 to 40 percent increased risk of onset of multimorbidity,” says lead author Severine Sabia, PhD, of Université Paris Cité, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), and University College London. The association remained in each decade of life, whether sleep was measured at 50, 60, or 70 years old, says Dr. Sabia.
It’s estimated that about 1 in 3 Americans aren’t getting enough sleep; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adults should sleep at least seven hours per night for optimal health.
Nearly everyone has a day here and there where they don’t get enough sleep — that hasn’t been shown to have long term health consequences. But when a person doesn’t get enough sleep for three months or longer, it’s known as chronic sleep deprivation or insufficient sleep syndrome.
The hallmark symptom of chronic sleep deprivation is being excessively sleepy during the day as well as difficulty concentrating, thinking and remembering, according to the Sleep Foundation. People who are chronically sleep deprived can also have mood changes, including feelings of stress, anxiety, or irritability, and an overall lack of energy.
4 in 10 U.S. Adults Have 2 or More Chronic Diseases
To find out more about how sleep and the risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, investigators used data from Whitehall II, a cohort study established in 1985 that included people employed in the London offices of the British civil service.
Although sleep duration has been associated with individual chronic diseases, less is known about its association with multimorbidity — the co-occurrence of two or more chronic conditions, according to the authors.
Generally speaking, a chronic disease is a condition that lasts one year or more requires ongoing medical attention or limits activities of daily living, or both. An estimated 6 in 10 adults in the United States have a chronic disease, and 4 in 10 adults have two or more, according to the CDC.
The list of chronic diseases was chosen from previous research on multimorbidity and included diabetes, cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, depression, dementia, other mental disorders, Parkinson’s disease, and arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. Although obesity and hypertension are chronic diseases, they were not included in the study.
Less Sleep Linked With a Higher Likelihood of Having Multiple Chronic Diseases
There was data on sleep duration at age 50 for a total of 7,864 healthy (free from any of the chronic diseases) adults; 32.5 percent were women. Self-reported sleep duration was measured six times between 1985 and 2016, and researchers extracted data on how long subjects slept when they were (on average) 50, 60, and 70 years old.
They found the following associations between sleep and having two or more chronic diseases:
- At age 50, those who slept five hours or less had a 30 percent greater risk of multimorbidity compared with those who slept seven hours.
- At age 60, those who slept five hours or less had a 32 percent greater risk and at 70 had a 40 percent greater risk compared with seven hours per night.
- Shorter sleep at age 50 was also associated with a 25 percent higher risk of mortality, mainly due to its association with an increased risk of chronic disease.
The present study, along with evidence from previous studies shows the importance of sleep duration for good health at older ages, says Sabia.
“Sleep is important for the regulation of several body function such as metabolic, endocrine, and inflammatory regulation over the day, that in turn when dysregulated may contribute to increase risk of several chronic conditions and ultimately death,” she says.
According to the CDC, behaviors that can increase the risk of developing a chronic disease include tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure; poor nutrition, including not eating enough fruits and vegetables and eating too much sodium and saturated fats; physical inactivity; and drinking too much alcohol.
The population studied was from the United Kingdom, and 90 percent of the participants were white, and so these findings need to be confirmed in a more diverse population, noted the authors.
Sleeping Longer Appeared to Increase the Risk of Multimorbidity in 60- and 70-Year-Olds
Investigators also found that sleeping longer than nine hours was associated with higher rates of multiple chronic diseases in 60- and 70-year-olds.
The number of people sleeping that long was small — only 122 participants — and so firm conclusions can’t be drawn from this finding, says Sabia. The longer sleep could be attributed to the chronic diseases themselves, the authors wrote.
“Further studies shall examine the role of long sleep duration in a large study population,” says. Sabia.
Tips on Improving Your Sleep
The CDC offers these tips to help you get on the path to better sleep and improving your overall health:
- Try to go to sleep and get up at approximately the same time every day.
- Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, and at a comfortable temperature.
- Avoid large meals, tobacco, and alcohol before bedtime
- Exercise regularly; being physically active during the day can help you fall asleep at night.
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