Scientists have told how much you need to sleep

New studyAssociation of sleep duration at age 50, 60, and 70 years with risk of multimorbidity in the UK: 25-year follow-up of the Whitehall II cohort study / PLOS Medicine showed that people over the age of 50 should sleep at least five hours a night if they want to reduce the risk of numerous chronic diseases. This conclusion was made by researchers from the University of Paris-Cite.

Scientists suggest that five hours may be the threshold that older people should aim for if they want to stay healthy. Those who, on average, slept longer had a higher chance of avoiding health problems.

The study involved about 7,000 UK civil servants over the age of 50 who did not have multimorbidityMultimorbidity is a condition that includes the presence of two or more chronic diseases, etiologically and pathogenetically unrelated. All of them participated in the cohort Whitehall ResearchThe Whitehall Study explored the social determinants of health, in particular cardiovascular disease prevalence and mortality rates among British civil servants.

in 1985. Their current data was analyzed in a new study to find a link between sleep and the development of ailments.

Based on the results of a comprehensive analysis, scientists confirmedthat short sleep duration is associated with chronic disease onset and multimorbidity, but not with subsequent mortality in individuals with chronic disease.

Here are some more findings:

• There is a strong association of sleep duration ≤5 hours at ages 50, 60 and 70 with higher risk multimorbidity, while an association with sleep duration ≥9 hours was observed only when measured in aged 60 and 70 years.
• Short sleep at age 50 is associated with a 20% increased risk of a first chronic disease and the same increased risk of subsequent multimorbidity, but within this framework there was no clear evidence of an association with mortality.
• Scientists believe that in an ideal world we should all sleep for about eight hours, but if life has other plans, then five hours should really be the absolute minimum.