A Nature study of nearly half a million UK Biobank participants, using 23 aging clocks across 17 organ systems, found the slowest biological aging around 6.4 to 7.8 hours a night. Lead author Junhao Wen, a Columbia assistant professor of radiology:
“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.”
The method layered multiple data types. “In the liver, for example, we have an aging clock built with protein data, an aging clock of metabolic data, and an aging clock of imaging data,” Wen said. “This allows us to see whether sleep is distinctively associated with aging clocks derived from multiple omics and molecular layers.”
“Everyone is excited by these aging clocks and their ability to predict disease and mortality risk,” he added, “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?”
A Goldilocks Window
“Too little sleep is bad and too much sleep is bad. It is a Goldilocks kind of phenomenon,” said Mark Lachs, MD, a Weill Cornell geriatrician not involved in the study. “There is nothing that I can do for a patient that’s better than a good night’s sleep.”
“Across the board, this optimal sleep duration hovers around 6.5 to 7.5 hours,” said Columbia sleep researcher Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, who was not part of the study. “Women seem to do better with a little longer, about 15, 20 minutes, which is interesting because it matches what we see in the general population.”
The pattern echoes the research behind 8,500 steps a day: the unglamorous number wins.
Joseph has been writing and editing for a wide variety of publications over the last decade. He loves covering news in the health and wellness space and has written extensively about all aspects of wellness for a wide range of publications.
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