Insomnia Directly Associated with an Increased Death Risk

Symptoms of insomnia have been linked to a higher risk of death, a recent study confirms.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts found that men experiencing specific sleep problems such as non-restorative sleep and difficulty falling asleep increased their risk of death due to heart-related problems. Previous studies concluded that sleep is crucial for heart health and poor or insufficient sleep has been linked with increased factors for cardiovascular disease. Study lead author Dr. Yanping Li, a research fellow in the Channing Division of Network Medicine explained: "Insomnia is a common health issue, particularly in older adults, but the link between this common sleep disorder and its impact on the risk of death has been unclear."

Dr. Yi and his team of researchers analyzed data on self-reported insomnia symptoms among nearly 23,500 men collected in 2004. The participants were followed for six years. They reported that 2,025 of the participants died over the follow-up. Participants who reported that they had difficulty sleeping and non-restorative sleep had a 55 percent and 32 percent risk of death due to heart-related causes, respectively compared with those participants who did not experience the same thing.

Senior author Dr. Xiang Gao, of BWH's Channing Division of Network Medicine and assistant professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School says: "Now we know that not only can poor sleep impact disease risk, but it may also impact our longevity. While future research is necessary to confirm these findings, there is overwhelming evidence that practicing good sleep hygiene and prioritizing sufficient and restful sleep is an often overlooked but important modifiable risk factor in overall health." The researchers suggest that caffeine can disrupt sleep hours even if it is consumed six hours prior to bedtime. Drinking coffee can reduce sleep time by more than an hour as they wrote in the journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.