Both too much and too little sleep damages our health

How does the duration of our sleep affect your health??

If you are one of those people who often sleep too little during the week, this could be extremely detrimental to your health. But equally bad are overly long sleep times. Researchers now found that both too much and too little sleep can lead to a variety of illnesses and negative health effects, such as high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels.

Researchers at the Seoul National University College of Medicine found in their current research that too much or too little sleep can cause serious health complications. The physicians published the results of their current study in the English language journal "BMC Public Health".

Hypertension due to bad sleep habits?

When a person suffers from sleep deprivation, this is extremely harmful to their health. Most people are well aware of this relationship. However, too little or too much can cause a variety of unwanted health conditions, such as high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels, the authors of the study explain.

More than 133,000 people participated in the study

The research team analyzed the data of a total of 133,608 Korean men and women between the ages of 40 and 69 for their study. The information was originally collected as part of the so-called HEXA study (The Health Examinees), which collected the data over nine years from 2004 onwards.

Subjects were divided into different groups

The 44,930 men and 88,678 women were divided into four sleep categories during the study: less than six hours sleep, six to eight hours sleep, eight to ten hours sleep, and more than ten hours sleep.

Low sleepers are more likely to develop a metabolic syndrome

The results of the study indicate that men who slept less than six hours a night were more likely to develop a metabolic syndrome than those who slept for eight hours. The so-called metabolic syndrome refers to a number of conditions, including high blood sugar, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and extra fat around the waist, the researchers add. In addition, both men and women, who regularly received less than six hours sleep, were at greater risk of developing a higher waist circumference.

Too much sleep is unhealthy

While it could normally be assumed that the participants who have slept for more than ten hours, live healthier and develop less negative effects, the current studies have proven the opposite. Both men and women in this particular category showed an increased likelihood of metabolic syndrome. In addition, women with long sleeping hours were more likely to have excessive fat accumulation at the waist.

Effects were different for men and women

The current study is the largest study investigating a dose-response relationship between sleep duration, metabolic syndrome, and their components separately for men and women, explains study author Claire E. Kim of the University College of Medicine. A possible gender difference in sleep duration and metabolic syndrome could be observed during the study, with a link between the metabolic syndrome and a long sleep in women and the metabolic syndrome and a short sleep in men, adds the physician. The authors emphasize, however, that their research was a so-called observational study and therefore no clear conclusions can be drawn on cause and effect. (As)