Insomnia may cause men to die younger


Wednesday 1st September, 2010

Men who suffer with insomnia could be heading for an early grave, say scientists.

A new study on sleep has found that male insomniacs are more likely to die prematurely than men who get a decent night’s sleep.

However, the same does not apply to women who, according to results, are able to cope with a lack of sleep without it affecting their life expectancy.

Lead researcher of the study, Dr Alexandros Vgontzas of Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania, said:

“The primary finding of our study is that insomnia, the most common sleep disorder, is associated with significant mortality in men.

“Until now, no study has demonstrated that insomnia is associated with mortality.”

Nearly two thousand volunteers joined the study in the 1990s and provided a sleep diary as well as having their sleep monitored during a night’s stay at a laboratory.

Chronic insomnia was diagnosed in eight per cent of women and four per cent of men however over 14 years the men were four times more likely to die prematurely than those who had healthy amounts of sleep.

Diseases that could affect sleep such as diabetes and high blood pressure were taken into account as were risk factors such as alcohol, obesity and smoking.

Researchers were unsure why insomnia is more dangerous for men and experts have been quick to dismiss the results as women in the study were followed up for ten years while men were studied for 14.

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