See what researchers found about sleeping for long hours

A new study by a team of researchers at the Keele University, Newcastle, United Kingdom has shown that people, who sleep for more than eight hours each night are at a greater risk cardiovascular disease  and mortality than people who sleep for seven hours or less.

According to news-medical.net, the researchers noted that sleeping for 10 hours was associated with a 30 per cent increased risk of dying, compared with sleeping for seven hours.

The research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association where lead author, Chung Shing Kwok, and colleagues studied the link between self-reported sleep duration and quality, cardiovascular outcomes and mortality across 74 studies.

Kwok, said, “This research began because we were interested in learning if it was more harmful to sleep below or beyond the recommended sleep duration of seven to eight hours. We further wanted to know how incremental deviation from recommended sleep duration altered risk of mortality and cardiovascular risk.”

The study also found that sleeping for 10 hours increased the risk of death from stroke by 56 per cent and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 49 per cent.

Kwok noted that the findings had important implications for the public because they showed that too much sleep could increase cardiovascular risk. He, therefore, suggested that doctors should ask more about sleep duration and quality when talking to patients.

“The important message was that abnormal sleep is a marker of elevated cardiovascular risk and greater consideration should be given in exploring both duration and sleep quality during patient consultations,” Kwok submitted.