Lack of Sleep linked to Increased Risk of Premature Death

Sleep is a naturally recurring state of relatively suspended sensory and motor activity, characterized by total or partial unconsciousness and the inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and it is more easily reversible than hibernation or coma. It is essential for survival because enables the body to rest and cope from the energy lost throughout the day.

Researchers say people who get less than six hours sleep per night have an increased 12% risk of dying prematurely.

Development of diabetes, hypertension, obesity and high cholesterol has been linked to lack of sleep according to Francesco Cappuccio who led the study Britain's University of Warwick.

Society pushes people to sleep less and less. About 20 percent of the population in the United States and Britain sleeps less than five hours and is may be due to societal pressures for longer working hours and more shift work.

The study also found a link between sleeping more than nine hours per night and premature death, but Cappuccio said oversleeping is more likely to be an effect of illness, rather than a cause.

Research showed no adverse effects for those sleeping between six and eight hours per day.

*published in the Sleep Journal

Bad Habits can AGE you by 12 years

Smoking tobacco, drinking too much, inactivity and poor diet are bad habits that can age humans by 12 years, a study suggests.

These bad habits can increase the risk of death and people who engage in them seem 12years older than people in the healthiest group. The healthiest group of people are those who never smoked and those who had quit, women who had fewer than two drinks daily, and men who had fewer than three, those who got at least two hours of physical activity weekly, and those who ate fruits and vegetables at least thrice daily.

Study participants were 4,886 British adults aged 18 and older, or 44 years old on average. They were randomly selected from participants in a separate nationwide British health survey. Study subjects were asked about various lifestyle habits only once, a potential limitation, but Kvaavik said those habits tend to be fairly stable in adulthood.

Death certificates were checked for the next 20 years. The most common causes of death included heart disease and cancer, both related to unhealthy lifestyles.

The findings don't mean that everyone who maintains a healthy lifestyle will live longer than those who don't, but it will increase the odds, Stevens said.

http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/us_med_bad_habits_survival.html