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Correlates of long sleep duration.
Sanjay R Patel1, Atul Malhotra, Daniel J Gottlieb
1Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Sleep
|August 10, 2006
Summary
Longer sleep durations are linked to higher mortality. Depression and low socioeconomic status may explain this association, acting as confounders or causal factors.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology
- Public Health
- Sleep Medicine
Background:
- Prolonged sleep duration (over 7-8 hours) is consistently linked to increased mortality.
- The causal relationship and underlying pathways of this association remain unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify factors that may explain the observed association between long sleep duration and mortality.
- To investigate the potential role of confounding or causal pathways in the long sleep-mortality relationship.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional epidemiologic survey of 60,028 middle-aged women from the Nurses Health Study II.
- Analysis focused on participants reporting habitual sleep of 7 hours or more.
- Statistical modeling to estimate confounding rate ratios for various factors.
Main Results:
- Multiple sclerosis, antidepressant use, benzodiazepine use, and systemic lupus erythematosus were strongly associated with prolonged sleep.
- Psychiatric and socioeconomic factors showed the greatest potential to influence the long sleep-mortality relationship.
- Depression, antidepressant use, and unemployment were estimated to have moderate confounding effects.
Conclusions:
- Depression and low socioeconomic status are key candidates explaining the statistical link between long sleep and mortality.
- These factors may act as either confounders or causal intermediates.
- Future research should thoroughly assess psychiatric and socioeconomic status in studies on long sleep effects.