If you sleep 5 hours or less a day, pay attention to these risks!

It is a known condition that sleep duration is associated with individual chronic diseases. However, its relationship with multimorbidity (simultaneous presence of two or more chronic conditions/symptoms) in older adults was not fully known. A study conducted in the UK has important things to say about this. Research says there is a link between less sleep and most chronic diseases in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

OVER 10 THOUSAND PEOPLE COMPARED WITH 7 HOURS OF SLEEP

A UK study used 25 years of data and looked at the relationship of sleep duration to the initial incidence of chronic disease and multiple chronic diseases. Data were drawn from a prospective Whitehall II cohort study conducted in 1985 on 10,308 UK government employees. Self-reported sleep duration was measured 6 times between 1985 and 2016, and data on sleep duration were extracted for those in their 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Compared with 7 hours of sleep, 5 and less than 5 hours of sleep were associated with a higher risk of multiple diseases, according to the study. This was also true for the short sleep period in the 60s and 70s.

Compared with 7 hours of sleep, 5 hours of sleep at age 50 was associated with an increased risk of initial chronic disease and subsequent multiple morbidity among those who developed the initial disease. There was no relationship between sleep duration and death among those with existing chronic diseases.

SHORT SLEEP IS RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRONIC DISEASE

“In this study, we observed that short sleep duration was associated with risk of chronic disease and subsequent multimorbidity, but not progression to death. There was no solid evidence of an increased risk of chronic disease in those with long sleep duration at age 50. Our findings show an association between short sleep duration and multiple diseases.

In conclusion, the findings from this study suggest that shorter sleep duration and old age in middle age are associated with a higher risk of chronic disease onset and multiple morbidity. “These findings support the promotion of good sleep hygiene by targeting behavioral and environmental conditions that affect sleep duration and quality.”