According to a study published in PLOS Medicine, getting less than five hours of sleep in mid-to-late life was linked to an elevated risk of acquiring at least two chronic illnesses. In the study, the team of researchers from the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health examined the relationship between sleep duration and mortality, as well as whether the participants had been diagnosed with two or more chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, or diabetes.

For the study, more than 7,000 men and women enrolled at the ages of 50, 60, and 70 from the Whitehall II cohort study. Based on the self-reported data, the team found that sleeping for less than or for five hours at the ages of 50, 60, and 70 years increased the risk of multimorbidity by 30% to 40% in comparison to those who slept for up to seven hours.

The findings of the study also found that the participants in their 50s who reported getting five hours of sleep or less were 20% more likely to have been diagnosed with a chronic disease and 40% more likely to have been diagnosed with two or more chronic diseases. Additionally, they found that in the 50s age group, the rate of mortality increased by 25% over the 25 years of follow-up.

(Source: https://theprint.in/health/five-hours-of-sleep-each-night-linked-to-greater-risk-of-several-diseases-study/1173808/ )