eMedicineLive

Owing to the increased level of competitiveness in today’s world, people are putting in more and more hours of work without worrying about the repercussions it can have on their health. There has been a gradual reduction in the average amount of sleep people take and it has resulted in the deterioration of our health status.

 

A research carried out by the University of Warwick in collaboration with the Federico II University Medical School in Naples, Italy has found that while short sleep may represent a cause of ill health, long sleep is believed to represent an indicator of ill health. The research, published in May 2010 issue of the journal “Sleep”, was carried out under Professor Francesco Cappuccio, leader of the Sleep, Health and Society Programme at the University of Warwick and Consultant Physician at the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust.

 

The study found direct unequivocal evidence that a short duration of sleep of less than 6 hours is directly related to an increased risk of dying prematurely. It also noted that sleeping for over 9 hours a night may be a marker of an underlying serious disease. The study analyzed 16 prospective studies from the UK, USA, Europe and East Asian countries encompassing over 1.3 million participants. The participants were followed up for 25 years and more than 100,000 deaths were recorded. The study tried to establish a relationship between the habitual duration of sleep and the mortality associated with it. It concluded that people who sleep for less than 6 hours or more than 9 hours every night are more likely to die prematurely as compared to people who slept for an average of 6 to 8 hours each night.

 

According to Professor Cappuccio, the duration of sleep should be regarded as an additional behavioral risk factor, or risk marker, influenced by the environment and possibly amenable to change through both education and counseling as well as through measures of public health aimed at favorable modifications of the physical and working environments.

 

References:

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