Individuals who are middle-aged and older and who sleep 5 hours or less a night may be at risk for an array of serious and chronic health conditions, ranging from heart disease to cancer, results of a large study show. MedTwitter
suggests that sleeping for 5 hours or less or 9 hours or more is associated with cancer and cardiovascular disease .
At age 60, those who slept 5 hours or less had a 32% greater risk of developing more than one chronic disease , and by age 70, this risk increased to 40% compared to their peers who slept 7 hours a night . "Sleep is important for the regulation of several body function, such as metabolic, endocrine, and inflammatory regulation over the day, that in turn, when dysregulated, may contribute to increased risk of several chronic conditions."
and that overestimation can be seen among individuals with behaviorally based chronic, insufficient sleep."Getting 5 hours of high-quality sleep is less worrisome than one getting 8 hours of terrible-quality, based on untreated sleep apnea, for instance," she noted.