Durban - Too much sleep can kill you. While I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I will feel I am doing you a great disservice if I don't share the findings of a global study, published by the European Heart Journal with you.
According to CNN, the study revealed that the recommended amount of sleep for adults is six to eight hours a night. Sleeping more than those hours is associated with an increased risk of death and cardiovascular diseases.
The study looked at data from 21 countries across seven regions and found that people who sleep more than the recommended limit of eight hours per day risked major cardiovascular illness such as strokes or heart failure as well as death by up to 41%.
However, a possible reason for this could be that people have underlying health conditions that cause them to sleep longer and this could in turn raise the risk of cardiovascular disease or even mortality.
CNN said the team, led by Chuangshi Wang, a Ph.D. student at McMaster and Peking Union Medical College in China, also identified a rising risk among daytime nappers.
Wang said that daytime napping was associated with increased risks of major cardiovascular events and deaths in those with [more than] six hours of nighttime sleep but not in those sleeping [less than] 6 hours a night.
Wang added that in those who underslept, a daytime nap seemed to compensate for the lack of sleep at night and to mitigate the risks.
Previously, studies were only conducted in North America, Europe and Japan.
Keep in mind that the findings are observational, meaning the cause of this association remains unknown.
Having under six hours sleep has also shown to increase these risks by 9%, compared with people who slept for the recommended six to eight hours, but this finding was not considered to be statistically significant by the team.