UCSF Scientist and Colleagues Find We May Sleep Even Less than We Think

A paper published in the July 1, 2006, issue of American Journal of Epidemiology reports that early-middle-aged people (38-50 years) appear to sleep much less than they should, and even less than they think they do. The study of 669 adults in Chicago found that although participants averaged 7.5 hours a night in bed and believed they were getting about 6.5 hours of sleep, they actually spent only 6.1 hours asleep. Race, sex and socioeconomic status were strongly associated with both sleep duration and quality. White women got the most sleep, 6.7 hours a night, followed by white men at 6.1 hours, black women at 5.9 hours and black men at 5.1 hours. Participants with more education and income slept longer, despite spending less time in bed. Recent studies have tied chronic, partial sleep deprivation to medical problems, including obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Stephen Hulley, MD, MPH, UCSF professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, was a study co-author.