Citation

Gallicchio L, Kalesan B. J. Sleep Res. 2009; 18(2): 148-158.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, European Sleep Research Society, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1365-2869.2008.00732.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Epidemiologic studies have shown that sleep duration is associated with overall mortality. We conducted a systematic review of the associations between sleep duration and all‐cause and cause‐specific mortality. PubMed was systematically searched up to January, 2008 to identify studies examining the association between sleep duration and mortality (both all‐cause and cause‐specific) among adults. Data were abstracted serially in a standardized manner by two reviewers and analyzed using random‐effects meta‐analysis. Twenty‐three studies assessing the associations between sleep duration and mortality were identified. All examined sleep duration measured using participant self‐report. Among the 16 studies which had similar reference categories and reported sufficient data on short sleep and mortality for meta‐analyses, the pooled relative risk (RR) for all‐cause mortality for short sleep duration was 1.10 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06, 1.15]. For cardiovascular‐related and cancer‐related mortality, the RRs associated with short sleep were 1.06 (95% CI: 0.94, 1.18) and 0.99 (95% CI: 0.88, 1.13), respectively. Similarly, among the 17 studies reporting data on long sleep duration and mortality, the pooled RRs comparing the long sleepers with medium sleepers were 1.23 (95% CI: 1.17, 1.30) for all‐cause mortality, 1.38 (95% CI: 1.13, 1.69) for cardiovascular‐related mortality, and 1.21 (95% CI: 1.11, 1.32) for cancer‐related mortality. Our findings indicate that both short sleepers and long sleepers are at increased risk of all‐cause mortality. Further research using objective measures of sleep duration is needed to fully characterize these associations.