Study Links Too Little Sleep — or Too Much — to Faster Aging Across the Body

Getting too little sleep — or too much — may be linked to faster aging in nearly every major organ system, according to new research.The study published in “Nature” analyzed data from more than 500,000 participants in the UK Biobank and found that people who slept fewer than 6 hours or more than 8 hours a night showed signs of accelerated biological aging compared with those who slept between 6.4 and 7.8 hours. Researchers said that range was associated with healthier aging, lower disease risk, and better longevity outcomes.“Previous studies have found that sleep is largely linked to aging and the pathological burden of the brain. Our study goes further and shows that too little and too much sleep are associated with faster aging in nearly every organ, supporting the idea that sleep is important in maintaining organ health within a coordinated brain-body network, including metabolic balance and a healthy immune system,” said the study’s leader, Junhao Wen, an assistant professor of radiology at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.Unlike chronological age, which measures how many years a person has lived, biological age reflects how quickly the body’s cells and tissues are aging. To measure this, the research team used 23 organ-specific aging clocks across 17 organ systems. These machine learning models estimate biological age using data such as medical imaging, proteins, and molecules found in blood.“This has a strong implication for future sleep management and future therapeutics,” Dr. Wen said. “Our study suggests there may be different biological pathways between long and short sleepers that lead to the same outcome, late-life depression, and we shouldn’t treat them the same way.”The study also found links between short sleep and conditions including depression, anxiety, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and heart arrhythmias. Both short and long sleep were associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, gastritis, and gastroesophageal reflux disease.Researchers cautioned that the study does not prove sleep duration directly causes faster aging. Instead, sleep patterns may act as markers of broader health issues. Still, the results highlight sleep as a potentially important factor in long-term health. As Dr. Wen noted, “Everyone is excited by these aging clocks and their ability to predict disease and mortality risk, but to me, the more exciting question is, can we link aging clocks to a lifestyle factor that can be modified in time to slow aging?”

Study Links Too Little Sleep — or Too Much — to Faster Aging Across the Body

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