Researchers at Columbia University have found that deviating from optimal sleep duration accelerates biological aging of the brain, heart, and lungs. The ideal amount of nightly rest is between 6.4 and 7.8 hours, reports infohub.kz.
The research team, led by Junhao Wen, an assistant professor of radiology, analyzed data from about 500,000 participants in the UK Biobank. Using machine learning, they examined 23 types of "biological clocks" for 17 organ systems, drawing on protein markers from blood tests, imaging results, and metabolic indicators.
The analysis revealed a U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and health. People who slept less than six hours or more than eight hours per day showed the highest rates of biological aging. The slowest aging was observed among those who slept between 6.4 and 7.8 hours.
Short sleep was closely linked to depression, depressive disorders, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension. In turn, both short and excessively long sleep were associated with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and digestive system disorders.