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Insomniac men more likely to die early

Men suffering from sleep deprivation are more likely to die prematurely than those who regularly get a good night's sleep.

Insomniac men more likely to die early

Men suffering from sleep deprivation are more likely to die prematurely than those who regularly get a good night's sleep.

Previously published studies have shown that chronic insomnia with short sleep duration is associated with deficits in neurocognitive function and increased risks of both type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Chronic insomnia is defined by a complaint of insomnia with duration of at least one year. Because insomnia with objective short sleep duration is associated with increased morbidity, researchers in America examined the effects of this insomnia subtype on all-cause mortality. For their study, the researchers looked at the sleep patterns of 1,000 women and 741 men with an average age of 50 years, who joined the study in the 1990s and provided a detailed sleep history. They also had their sleep monitored during one night in a laboratory.

Eight per cent of women and four per cent of men were diagnosed as having chronic insomnia and sleeping on average fewer than six hours a night.  Over the following 14 years, men with chronic insomnia were four times more likely to die than those with more healthy sleep patterns. The findings took into account diseases that could cause the men to sleep badly - such as diabetes and high blood pressure - and risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use, depression, obesity and sleeping disorders.

However, women with insomnia were just as likely to die in the following decade as those without, the researchers found. An even higher risk of premature death was seen in men if they suffered from chronic insomnia and diabetes or high blood pressure suggesting that the treatment of insomnia in people with impaired physical health should be a medical priority.

The researchers noted that it is unclear why the risk of death was increased in men but not in women. They also cautioned that six hours of sleep is not recommended as the optimum sleep duration for the general population as a six-hour cut-off point was used by them only for the statistical evaluation of the severity of insomnia. It is recommended that most adults need seven to eight hours of nightly sleep to feel alert and well rested during the day. The results of this study suggest that public health policy should emphasize the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of chronic insomnia.
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