Too much sleep leads to medical disorders

Getting Too Much Sleep? This could be Dangerous

Longer sleep durations are associated with increased mortality and a host of medical disorders, according to research presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting.

A study team lead by Japanese psychiatrist Norio Watanabe, MD, collected data from prospective cohort studies on associations between long sleep duration and outcomes 1 year or later.

They used 137 studies with a total of 5,134,036 participants

Long sleep was significantly associated with mortality, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, coronary heart diseases, and obesity. There was no significant difference in hypertension, and no sufficient evidence regarding depression and dyslipidemia.

The study team also performed meta-regression analyses, which found “a statistically significant linear association between longer duration of sleep and increase in mortality and cardiovascular disease.” They did not identify any dose response in the other outcomes.

• According to the meta-regression, sleep durations of 9.5 hours and longer were significantly associated with higher incidence of mortality, Dr. Watanabe said.

Clinical trials are needed in the area, said Dr. Watanabe, noting that of the studies the team found and used were outdated.

“Future studies should examine the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions to optimize sleep duration and then if this leads to reducing these health outcomes in general community settings,” the researchers concluded.

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