Sleep: a serious contender for the prevention of obesity and non-communicable diseases

Dale E Rae, Irshaad Ebrahim, Laura C Roden

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Abstract

Sleep — how seriously do we need to take it?

There is a perception that time spent asleep is time wasted. Anecdotally one hears of people sleeping no more than 3–4 h per night with no apparent ill effects. As tempting as a short sleep regime sounds, we know that sleep is critical for survival. In 1983 Rechtschaffen and colleagues showed that rats developed pathology and died within 14 to 21 days of total sleep deprivation.1
Data accumulated over the past 40 years from prospective cohort studies indicate higher all-cause mortality rates among people who sleep either less than 6 h or more than 9 h per night.2 We also know that sleep loss affects neurobehavioural performance, metabolism and obesity, and psychological health
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-2
Number of pages2
JournalJournal of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes of South Africa
Volume21
Issue number1
Early online date23 Feb 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

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