WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A new study suggests that getting too little or too much sleep may be linked to faster aging in different parts of the body, including the brain, heart, lungs and immune system. Moreover, these unusual sleep patterns were also associated with several health problems.
Researchers led by Junhao Wen from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons used health information from about 500,000 people in the UK Biobank to develop special 'aging clocks.' These tools use data such as medical scans, blood proteins and other molecules to estimate the biological age of different organs.
'In the liver, for example, we have an aging clock built with protein data, an aging clock of metabolic data, and an aging clock of imaging data,' Wen explained. 'This allows us to see whether sleep is distinctively associated with aging clocks derived from multiple omics and molecular layers.'
The researchers then compared the participants' sleep habits with biological age estimates from 23 aging clocks covering 17 organ systems. They found a clear U-shaped pattern. People who slept less than six hours or more than eight hours a night generally showed signs of faster biological aging. The lowest signs of aging were seen in people who slept around 6.4 to 7.8 hours per day.
The study also found a strong connection between sleep and mental and physical health. Short sleep was linked to depression and anxiety, as well as obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and irregular heart rhythms.
Researchers also looked at whether biological aging could help explain the connection between sleep and depression later in life. They found that short sleep may have a more direct link to late-life depression, while the effects of long sleep may be connected to changes in the biological aging of the brain and body fat.
'Previous studies have found that sleep is largely linked to aging and the pathological burden of the brain. Our study goes further and shows that too little and too much sleep are associated with faster aging in nearly every organ, supporting the idea that sleep is important in maintaining organ health within a coordinated brain-body network, including metabolic balance and a healthy immune system,' Wen concluded.
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