Too little and too much sleep associated with faster aging

Amazing stuff! The optimal sleep duration is reported between 6.4 and 7.8 hours. But what about sleep quality?

"An analysis of biological clocks throughout the human body suggests that too few hours of sleep—and too many—may speed aging in the brain, heart, lung, and immune system and is associated with a wide range of diseases. ..."

From the abstract:

"Optimal sleep has a vital role in promoting healthy ageing and enhancing longevity. Here we propose Sleep Chart to assess the relationship between self-reported sleep duration and 23 biological ageing clocks derived from in vivo imaging, plasma proteomics and metabolomics.

First, a systemic, U-shaped pattern emerges between sleep duration and biological age gaps across nine brain and body systems and three omics technologies.

The sample-specific lowest biological age gaps are achieved between 6.4 and 7.8 h of sleep duration, varying by organ and sex in the UK Biobank (aged 37–84 years).

Furthermore, short (<6 h) and long (>8 h) sleep duration, compared with a normal sleep duration (6–8 h), are associated with increased risk of systemic diseases beyond the brain and all-cause mortality, with evidence from genetic correlations and time-to-incident survival predictions, such as depression and diabetes.

Finally, the pathways by which long and short sleep duration are associated with late-life depression differ: ageing clocks may partially mediate the pathway for long sleep duration, while short sleep duration shows a more direct link. Although Mendelian randomization does not provide strong evidence that disease causally affects sleep, it cannot completely exclude such reverse causality. Our findings suggest a cross-organ, multi-omics U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and biological ageing clocks, highlighting the potential of sleep optimization to promote healthy ageing, lower disease risk and extend longevity."

Too little sleep—and too much—associated with faster aging

Too Little Sleep—and Too Much—Associated with Faster Aging (original news release)

Sleep chart of biological ageing clocks in middle and late life (open access)

For many organs, sleep duration betwen 6.4 and 7.8 hours was associated with less aging as measured by organ-specific biological clocks. The clocks in this image are created from protein data specific to each organ. Blue lines represent males; red lines represent females.

Fig. 2: Genetic evidence for a systemic landscape of abnormal sleep duration patterns compared to normal sleep duration.