Not getting enough sleep each night may increase older adults’ risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, a new study suggests.

Data from almost 8,000 healthy people aged 50, 60 or 70 found those who slept for five hours or less were up to 40% more likely to develop two or more long-term health conditions than those who got seven hours of shut-eye.

The risk was highest for those aged 70, while it stood at 32% for those aged 60 and 30% for 50-year-olds.

Among the diseases considered were diabetes, cancer, coronary heart disease, depression, and dementia.

Shorter sleep time at 50 was also associated with a 25% higher risk of death, mainly due to its association with an increased risk of chronic disease.

The data came from a cohort study established back in 1985 by the Universite Paris Cite, University College London, and the national health institute of France.

One of the researchers, Severine Sabia, said: “Our study based on data on more than 7,000 men and women followed up for 25 years reports short sleep duration from mid to late life to be associated with risk of chronic disease and subsequent multimorbidity.”

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‘Listen to our bodies’

Dr Sabia told Sky News that in recent decades, there is a trend that people sleep less, citing a US study which found that average sleep duration declined by up to 15 minutes between 1985 and 2012.

People also tend to sleep less as they get older, Dr Sabia added.

“It might be that people do not realise they don’t sleep enough,” she said, with 24/7 technology and busy lifestyles making it harder for people to switch off.

“And so the first tip is to listen to our bodies: when you are tired, go to sleep. We do not allow ourselves the time we need to sleep.”

Read more:
Night owls are at higher risk of heart disease
Sleeping an extra hour can help you lose weight

Sleep duration was self-reported as part of the peer-reviewed study, which it acknowledges is not always reliable.

At 60 and 70, sleeping more than nine hours was linked to higher rates of multiple chronic diseases, but there were only 122 participants who slept this long, and the longer sleep may be attributed to the diseases themselves.

But the findings, along with evidence from previous studies, undoubtedly shows the importance of sleep duration for good health at older ages.

The researchers say they conducted the study because the prevalence of multiple long-term conditions is on the rise, with more than half of older adults in high-income countries having at least two chronic diseases.

Their findings have been published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

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