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Do you get yourself the required sleep of 7 to 8 hours per day? If your answer is no, it is better to fill in for the inadequate sleep as a recent study suggests that by sleeping less you could be increasing your odds of developing colon cancer.

Colon cancer refers to a malignant tumor of the colon, a part of the large intestine that extracts fluid from food residues before they are excreted. One of the early symptoms of colon cancer is bloody stools. It is one of the most common categories of cancers diagnosed in the United States and also one of the prominent causes of cancer deaths in the western part of the world. Medical experts believe that the risk of colon cancer increases with age and those individuals are at a higher risk of acquiring it whose immediate family member viz., one of the parents or sibling has colon cancer. A family history of colon cancer, lack of physical activity, smoking, high red meat intake and alcohol consumption are some of the major risk factors that may cause colon cancer among others. A recent study published in the journal Cancer has established inadequate sleep to be a new risk factor that may lead to colon cancer.

Lack of sleep for long has been associated with major health related problems and other critical disorders including diabetes, obesity, coronary heart diseases. Findings of a recent research have now included colon cancer in the list of major risks that lack of sleep poses.This is the first of its kind research to report a substantial association of the number of hours of sleep with the colon cancer. It has revealed that individuals who took less than six hours of sleep at night had raised their risk of acquiring colorectal adenomas by 50 percent as compared to the individuals who slept for a minimum of seven hours every night. It is believed that adenomas are generally benign but can act predecessors to malignant cancerous tumors if they are not treated in time.

The study involved a phone survey of patients; which included questions like the patient's overall number of hours of sleep during the preceding month, how frequently the patient has had trouble in sleeping soundly and for how many hours does the patient sleep every night. The trial involved a study population of about 1240 patients, of which about three hundred odd patients were diagnosed with colorectal adenomas during an endoscopic examination of the colon.Researchers noted that the patients diagnosed with colorectal adenomas had reported less than six hours of sleep during the survey as opposed to the other individuals who were not diagnosed with the condition. Researchers also observed a close association between the sleep duration and colorectal adenomas when checked for other risk factors like a family history of colon cancer, smoking, and the patients’ relative magnitudes of waist size and hip size. The study brought out a slightly stronger relation between the amount of sleep and adenomas in women as compared to men, however, statistics failed to substantially prove this difference in association between genders.

Less than adequate sleep can now be considered as a risk factor for acquiring colon cancer. Although the research could not establish the reason behind the association between fewer hours of sleep and colon cancer, researchers point out that some prior studies have faint indications which explain the hormonal link between disturbed sleep and cancer development. Researchers however hope that an effective intervention technique to increase the number of hours of sleep and more importantly improve the quality of sleep could prove to be a line of approach to prevent colon cancer.

Reference
A recent study by Dr. Li and team from the University Hospitals, Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/uhcm-los020811.php

Disclaimer: This article is written by a non-medical professional.