- Getting enough sleep is vital for a person’s overall health.
- Researchers from Pennsylvania State University say there are four different sleep patterns that people follow that can help predict a person’s long-term health.
- They found that insomnia sleepers were associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression over a 10-year period.
Everyone knows that getting enough sleep every night is an important part of a person’s overall health.
Past studies show that lack of sleep can increase a person’s risk for several health conditions including cardiovascular diseaseTrusted Source, type 2 diabetesTrusted Source, obesityTrusted Source, depressionTrusted Source, Alzheimer’s diseaseTrusted Source, and cancerTrusted Source.
While everyone needs sleep, that doesn’t mean that everyone sleeps the same. In fact, researchers from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) say there are four different sleep patterns that people follow, and these patterns can help predict a person’s long-term health.
The study was recently published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
Why is sleep so important for health?
According to Dr. Soomi Lee, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State and lead author of this study, having a better understanding of how sleep affects our overall health is paramount because it allows us to target sleep as a modifiable factor for future prevention and intervention strategies.
“Research, including our own findings, consistently links poor sleep to a myriad of adverse health outcomes, ranging from heightened risks of depression, chronic painTrusted Source, cardiovascular diseases, to cognitive declineTrusted Source,” Dr. Lee told Medical News Today.
“Sleep, being a fundamental daily behavior, holds significant potential — if we enhance our sleep patterns on a daily basis, the cumulative effect on our health cannot be underestimated.”
— Dr. Soomi Lee
A study published in May 2017 found that sleep disruptions have major adverse short- and long-termTrusted Source health consequences.
Research presented in July 2023 found adults who adopt eight healthy habits — with one being good sleep hygiene — by age 40 could live an average of 23 to 24 years longer than those who do not.
4 specific sleep patterns
For this study, Dr. Lee and her team used data collected from about 3,700 participants of the Midlife in the United States study (MIDUS). Researchers had access to each participant’s sleep habits and chronic health details across two different time points 10 years apart.
Through this data, scientists were able to identify four different sleep patterns:
- Good sleepers who have the best sleeping habits across all data points
- Nappers who are mostly good sleepers, but take daytime naps frequently
- Weekend catch-up sleepers who have irregular sleep on weekdays and slept longer on weekends and holidays
- Insomnia sleepers who have sleeping issues such as taking a long time to fall asleep, short sleep durations, and increased tiredness during the day
Researchers reported more than half of the study participants fell into the insomnia sleepers or nappers groups.
“The prevalence of suboptimal sleep patterns, particularly insomnia sleepers or nappers, among the majority of participants was indeed surprising,” Dr. Lee said.
“Our study sample consisted primarily of healthy adults from the MIDUS study, leading us to anticipate better sleep health patterns. However, the findings revealed a concerning prevalence of insomnia sleeper or napper patterns among participants, highlighting the importance of addressing sleep health even among ostensibly healthy populations,” he explained.
Increased chronic disease risk for insomnia sleepers
Through the study’s findings, scientists discovered that those classified as insomnia sleepers had a significantly higher likelihood of developing chronic health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression, over the 10 years.
“It’s important to note that the identification of the insomnia sleeper phenotype was based on self-reported sleep characteristics rather than clinical diagnosis,” Dr. Lee said. “However, these characteristics closely align with clinical insomnia symptoms, including short sleep duration, high daytime tiredness, and prolonged sleep onset.”
Dr. Lee said this has several implications.
“Firstly, individuals experiencing these symptoms should consult a healthcare professional for appropriate evaluation and treatment. Secondly, our findings revealed that being an insomnia sleeper at any point over the 10-year period significantly increased the likelihood of developing multiple chronic health conditions, with up to an 81% increase observed,” she detailed.
“Thirdly, insomnia sleepers exhibited a reduced likelihood of transitioning to other sleep patterns over the decade, suggesting a persistent challenge in returning to optimal sleep,” Dr. Lee continued.
“Lastly, the study identified associations between insomnia sleeper patterns and socioeconomic factors such as lower education levels and unemployment,” she added.
Further exploration needed
When asked what plans she has for continuing this research, Dr. Lee said her next steps involve advancing this research to increase awareness about the significance of sleep health.
“With ample evidence linking better sleep health to positive health and aging outcomes, there’s a critical need for further exploration,” she continued.
“Specifically, I aim to delve into the antecedents of sleep health, investigating factors that contribute to maintaining optimal sleep patterns despite age-related declines. Understanding who maintains better sleep health and identifying protective factors against sleep disturbances will be central to shaping interventions aimed at promoting overall well-being,” she told Medical News Today.
Moving toward targeted treatments for sleep issues
MNT also spoke with Dr. Monique May, family physician and Aeroflow Sleep Advisory Board member, about this study.
Dr. May said her first reaction was that the findings, in regards to the insomnia sleepers, make sense intuitively.
“I would expect the insomnia sleepers to have an increased risk for chronic disease because they are not getting good, quality sleep, which is important in regulating metabolism and performing restorative activities,” she explained.
“However, I was surprised that the nappers had an increased risk for chronic disease because they were described as getting ‘mostly good sleep but frequent daytime naps.’ Napping, when done correctly, can be very beneficial, but according to this study, we may need to rethink napping recommendations,” she added.
Dr. May said it is important to have a better understanding of how sleep affects our overall health because it will allow doctors to offer improved and targeted treatments for people with sleep issues.
“Having evidence upon which to base lifestyle recommendations is key. For example, being able to identify what type of sleeper someone is at various points in their life will enable physicians (to) direct recommendations and treatment that will have (a) greater chance of being successful,” she said.
8-hour time-restricted eating linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death
- Restricting eating to a brief 8-hour window daily could result in a higher risk of death from heart attack and stroke, according to a new study.
- Researchers report that people who practice this time-restricted eating plan also had poorer outcomes if they had existing cardiovascular disease or cancer.
- This study was observational, so it is hard to draw definitive conclusions, but it does add to the growing body of studies on the pros and cons of time-restricted eating.
People who follow one of the more popular time-restricted eating strategies, 16:8 intermittent fasting, may have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and death than those who don’t fast or employ other fasting techniques, according to a new study.
The findingsTrusted Source are being presented at the EPI|Lifestyle Scientific Sessions 2024Trusted Source in Chicago. They haven’t been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal.
Intermittent fasting — where people purposefully restrict the hours during which they consume their daily calories —has become a trendy way to help lose weight, improve cholesterol, increase metabolism, and potentially reduce the risk of certain chronic diseases.
However, this new research casts some doubt as to the long-term health benefits of this eating strategy.
Details from the intermittent fasting study
Researchers looked at a group of 20,000 adults who answered questions about their dietary patterns for the annual 2003-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANESTrusted Source).
The researchers said they found that the participants who practiced 16:8 intermittent fasting were 91% more likely to have died from cardiovascular disease than those who didn’t practice this type of fasting.
They also reported that those with existing cardiovascular disease who consumed all their calories between an 8 and 10-hour frame also had a 66% higher risk of dying from heart disease and stroke.
In addition to the fact they found no benefit to time-restricted eating on death risk in general, the researchers also noted that among people with cancer, those who did not practice fasting and consumed their daily calories over a 16-hour frame actually had a lower risk of cancer mortality than those who ate in a more restricted time frame.
“The study included a large sample size and had a longitudinal design, looking at the individuals over an average of 8 years. However, the dietary information collected was by two 24-hour recalls at the time of enrollment, which can limit the study’s findings and accuracy given that dietary patterns can change over a period of time,” Michelle Routhenstein, RD, CDN, a preventive cardiology dietitian who wasn’t involved in the study, told Medical News Today.
In addition, observational studies, by their very nature, cannot prove cause and effect.
Those aren’t the only limitations, added Dr. Cheng-Han Chen, an interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in California who was not involved in the study.
“These findings run counter to many previous studies which find benefits of time-restricted eating to cardiovascular and metabolic health,” he told Medical News Story. “The full study has not yet been published, but there may be differences in the baseline characteristics of the time-restricted eating groups that could account for these surprising findings. The results may be confounded by differences in baseline demographics and characteristics between the TR groups (especially between the less-than-8-hour group and the others), as well as bias in a participant’s recall of their eating patterns.”
Is intermittent fasting right for you?
Even given their limitations, the research findings have plenty of merit for further investigation, experts say.
They said there is little long-term human research on intermittent fasting, so studies like this are crucial to deepening our understanding of the practice.
“This study is a great example of how short-term outcomes don’t always predict the long-term impact,” said Dr. Avantika Waring, the chief medical officer at cardiometabolic care telemedicine company 9amHealth who wasn’t involved in the study.
“It may be that intermittent fasting helps people lose weight in the short term and improves some metabolic markers, but doesn’t provide lasting cardiovascular benefits,” Waring told Medical News Today.
Ultimately, whether you want to try intermittent fasting of any kind also depends on you, the advice of your doctor, and your short-term and long-term goals.
“I would still recommend intermittent fasting for my patients as a way to lose weight, improve blood sugar control, improve cholesterol, and for overall cardiovascular health,” Chen said.
“The best dietary recommendation for anyone seeking to improve their health is one that they are able to do consistently,” Maggie Evans, RDN, the manager of nutrition programs at 9amHealth, told Medical News Today. “The best dietary patterns are specific to the individual’s medical history, health goals, and factors affecting their ability to succeed (socioeconomic status, budgets, lifestyle, etc.).”
Waring agreed.
“This study is overall quite exciting, and I know that many of my patients have had success losing weight by limiting their eating window, but the focus should remain on the type of food consumed — i.e., unprocessed and nutrient-dense,” she said. “And until we have more details about this study, and ideally a randomized controlled trial to study the actual effect of intermittent fasting beyond associations, I would not recommend this over other eating patterns.”
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