Sleeping for nine hours a night can lead to an early death... and has a higher mortality rate than getting less than six hours of shut eye, study finds
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After getting through the day there is nothing better than turning off the lights and curling up under the duvet.
But such a simple pleasure may cost you the ultimate price – with a study finding that sleeping for nine hours a night brings an increased risk of early death.
While getting seven to eight hours of shut-eye is the sweet spot for overall health, spending longer in bed is associated with a 17 per cent higher chance of dying from any cause.
The precise reasons for this are not well understood.
Yet those who sleep for longer are more likely to have high blood pressure, which plays a role in heart disease and strokes, and they may suffer from more inflammation than most.
Too much sleep can also interfere with the body's internal clock, hormonal regulation and the immune system.
Researchers tracked the sleeping habits of more than 3,000 people for 30 years.
The mortality rate was lowest for those who slept seven to eight hours a night, with 10.57 deaths for every 1,000 people over the three decades.
A study has found that sleeping for more than nine hours a night is associated with a higher risk of death, while seven to eight hours was linked to the lowest mortality rate (stock image)
But sleeping fewer than six hours had a mortality rate which was slightly higher, at 10.97. And for those getting more than nine hours, the rate was higher again at 11.27.
The Taiwanese researchers who carried out the study say sleep should be measured by medics in order to identify people at risk of premature death.
In the Journal of Sleep Research, they wrote: 'We found that long sleep duration was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality, and blood pressure accounted for a modest proportion of this association.
'These findings may have implications for identifying individuals at increased health risk – sleep duration assessment may be incorporated into routine health check-ups to help identify individuals at potentially increased health risk.'
Too much sleep has long been linked to issues such as heart problems and type 2 diabetes, obesity, poorer memory and brain health.
Adults are advised to get between seven and nine hours of sleep every night.
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