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By Kate McHugh, Ivanhoe Men’s health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Catching the right amount of Z’s could mean even more to your Men’s health. New research finds changes in the amount of sleep you get a night could increase your risk of premature death.

Sleep experts say the optimal amount of sleep an adult should get is seven and a half hours every night. Previous research has shown getting five hours or less or nine hours or more can increase your risk of premature death. However, researchers from London found even changes in your sleep can have this effect.

“With people who had moved into the short-sleep duration, what we saw was an increase in cardiovascular deaths of two-fold,” Jane E. Ferrie, Ph.D., senior research fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Heath at University College London Medical School in London, told Ivanhoe. “With the people who had moved into the long number of hours of sleep, we saw a two-fold increase in non-cardiovascular death.”

Dr. Ferrie said non-cardiovascular death meant any death that was not related to the cardiovascular system. The reasons for the increase in risk of death is not yet known, but further research could provide insight.

“The Men’s healthy condition seems to be to maintain the same sleep pattern, as long as you’re in the normal, goodish range of sleep — six, seven or eight hours. If you maintain that pattern, then your risk of death doesn’t increase,” Dr. Ferrie said.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Jane E. Ferrie, Ph.D.; SLEEP, 2007;30:1659-1666

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Aid / Disasters, Medical News, Sleep / Sleep Disorders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.