Older adults who sleep just five hours a night or fewer have a greater risk of developing more than one chronic disease, new research shows. The findings underscore the importance of healthy sleep patterns throughout life, and especially in middle and old age.
The new study, published in PLOS Medicine, examined sleep duration and its effect on multimorbidity—or the occurrence of more than one chronic condition, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, at once. People ages 50 or older who slept a total of five hours a night or less were found to have at least a 30% greater risk of multimorbidity.
Prior studies have largely focused on the link between sleep and the development of individual chronic diseases, but it’s been unclear how sleep duration contributes to the development of multiple chronic conditions. The new findings add to growing evidence suggesting that sleep deficiencies can affect health outcomes.
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