Nat Commun: The latest study of more than 700,000 people around the world: people in their 30s to 50s may sleep the shortest!

The typical human life course is characterized by youth, middle age, and old age, during which a wide range of biological, health, and cognitive functions are altered; Recently, a research report entitled "Reported sleep duration reveals segmentation of the adult life-course into three phases" published in the international journal Nature Communications, scientists from University College London and other institutions found that People sleep less
in middle age than they do in early and late adulthood.
Researchers say that in early adulthood to age 33, the body's sleep time will continue to decline, and then sleep time will increase
again at age 53.

For the study, the researchers recruited 730,187 participants from more than 63 countries, revealing how the sleep patterns of these participants changed throughout their life cycle, as well as differences between
participants in different countries 。 Participants in the study were all playing a mobile game called Sea Hero Quest, a citizen science project specifically designed for neuroscience research and developed by Deutsche Telekom and others; The project, which aims to aid Alzheimer's disease research by revealing differences in the body's spatial navigation capabilities, has been played by more than 4 million people and has contributed
to numerous studies throughout the project.

In addition to completing tasks that tested navigational skills, any participant who played the game was asked to answer questions about demographics, as well as other questions useful for neuroscience research, such as sleep patterns
.
The researchers found that across the study sample, people slept an average of 7.
01 hours per night, with women sleeping 7.
5 minutes
more than men 。 The researchers found that the youngest participants in the sample (the youngest age was 19) slept the longest, and the duration of sleep continued to decline in the participants' 20s and 30s, and only leveled off and increased again in their 50s; The pattern includes newly identified key time points when sleep decline plateauzes at age 33 and sleep duration increases again at age 53, while the pattern is the same for men and women and for participants in different countries and education levels, and the researchers say that the decline in sleep duration in middle age may be due to
the demands of parenting and working life.

People in their 30s and 50s may sleep the shortest
.

Image source: Nature Communications (2022).
DOI:10.
1038/s41467-022-34624-8

Previous studies have revealed an association between age and sleep duration, but in this study we have identified for the first time three distinct stages in the entire life course; Globally, people in middle age sleep less, and average sleep time varies
across regions and countries.
People in Eastern European countries that reported sleeping the most, such as Albania, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic, slept 20-40 minutes more per night, while people in South Asian countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, slept the least
.
People in the UK reported sleeping slightly less than average, while people in countries closer to the equator tended to sleep less
.

The researchers found that most individuals' ability to navigate may not be affected by sleep time, except for those aged 54-70, where the optimal sleep time is 7 hours, although the researchers caution that the results of the study may be affected by their underlying health conditions
.
In summary, the results of this paper suggest that self-reported sleep duration patterns on a global scale may have geographical cluster characteristics, and are related
to economy, culture and latitude.
(Biovalley Bioon.
com)

Original source:

Coutrot, A.
, Lazar, A.
S.
, Richards, M.
 et al.
 Reported sleep duration reveals segmentation of the adult life-course into three phases.
 Nat Commun 13, 7697 (2022).
doi：10.
1038/s41467-022-34624-8