Poor Sleep Habits May Be Deadly When Mixed With Certain Health Issues

Sleeping less than six hours every night may be deadly for people who have certain common health conditions, including high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. A study on this topic was recently published by the American Heart Association; it followed more than 1,600 adults ages 20 through 74, finding that short duration sleep may be a high risk factor for the development of cancer and early death in some people.

Poor quality and low duration sleep have both been associated with negative health outcomes in a number of studies. In this latest research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers found that sleeping less than six hours a night was linked to increased risk of developing cancer and dying at a younger age in people who had heart disease, a history of stroke, diabetes, and/or high blood pressure.

People with hypertension and diabetes, for example, were found to have double the risk of dying from heart disease or a stroke if they slept less than six hours per night. As well, people who had a history of stroke or heart disease were three times as likely to die from cancer if they got less than six hours of sleep per night.

On the flip side, sleeping more than six hours per night was linked to improvement in early death risk for people with diabetes or high blood pressure — this group had a 'negligible' risk compared to the high risk of the less-than-six-hours group.

The findings are concerning in light of how many people struggle to get adequate levels of sleep and who suffer from these health conditions; around 45-percent of people in the US have type 2 diabetes and/or high blood pressure. However, it should be noted that the findings were based on a sleep study on a single night, which means the participants' sleep quality may have been negatively impacted compared to sleep quality at home.