Links Between Chronic Disease And Sleeping

Oct, 2022 - By SMI

Researchers used information from the Whitehall II cohort study, a database of more than 10,000 persons who worked for the British Civil Service in London at the time of the project's data gathering phase's start in 1985.

When it came time for follow-ups to monitor their health as they aged, participants reported.

Between 1985 and 2016, they self-reported their sleep duration around six times. Researchers examined this information and separated out the sleep duration data provided by people at ages 50, 60, and 70, looking at a total of almost 7,000 subjects.

The next step was to determine whether these volunteers had any chronic illnesses and, if so, when they first manifested.

Arthritis, Diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, Parkinson's disease, coronary heart disease, dementia, stroke, depression, heart failure, liver disease, and chronic kidney disease were all included in their list of chronic illnesses.

At age 50, sleeping for five hours or less was linked to a 20% increased chance of being diagnosed with a single chronic illness, compared to those obtaining the recommended amount of sleep. This finding supports earlier studies about the risk of specific chronic illnesses.

They discovered that compared to persons who were sleeping for around seven hours a night, those who reported habitually sleeping for five hours or less at the ages of 50, 60, and 70 had a 30%–40% higher risk of multimorbidity.

Additionally, they discovered that people who reported getting five hours of sleep at age 50 were 25% more likely to have died at some point during the 25-year follow-up period. Researchers theorised that this association may be related to a higher risk of developing chronic diseases, which may be the cause of mortality.

The research suggests that it may happen once we reach our 60s and 70s, but possibly not before.

There was a correlation between the frequency of multimorbidity at ages 60 and 70 when researchers examined if sleeping for nine hours or more had any unfavourable health implications.