Think 8 Hours of Sleep Is Best for Longevity? A Study of 23 Biological Aging Clocks Found a Different Answer
New research discovered that too little or too much sleep can be detrimental to your long-term health. Instead, scientists recommend staying within this sweet spot.
Scientists just found the sweet spot for sleep—and it’s not eight hours.
A new study revealed that both sleeping too little and too much may be linked to faster aging throughout the body. Researchers from Columbia University analyzed 23 biological aging clocks and found the lowest aging levels among those sleeping between 6.4 to 7.8 hours per day.
The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, found that both short and long sleep was also associated with conditions impacting the brain, heart, lungs, metabolism, immune system, and the digestive system.
The study’s lead author Juhao Wen, PhD,
The study’s lead author Juhao Wen, PhD, an assistant professor of radiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said in a release that previous studies have linked sleep to aging and the pathological burden of the brain, which is the total amount of physical damage, abnormal material, and cell death present inside brain tissue.
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“Our study goes further and shows that too little and too much sleep are associated with faster aging in nearly every organ, supporting the idea that sleep is important in maintaining organ health within a coordinated brain-body network, including metabolic balance and a healthy immune system,” Wen said.
The researchers found that short sleep was significantly associated with depressive episodes, anxiety disorders, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. At the same time, those getting both short and long sleep were more associated with diseases like asthma and gastritis.
Clocks revealing how organs age
The data analyzed was taken from the U.K. Biobank—a study of half a million volunteers. They applied machine learning to see how aging in various organs and parts of the body was linked to the length of sleep reported.
Source: www.inc.com
