Too much or too little sleep may make your body age faster
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- Junhao Wen and colleagues at Columbia University analyzed 23 biological aging clocks covering 17 organ systems, built from imaging, protein, and blood-based data drawn from roughly 500,000 UK Biobank participants; the study was published in Nature
- The researchers identified a U-shaped pattern: people sleeping fewer than 6 hours or more than 8 hours per day showed faster biological aging, with the lowest aging levels among those reporting 6.4 to 7.8 hours nightly
- Short sleep was significantly associated with depressive episodes, anxiety disorders, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and heart arrhythmias
- Both short and long sleep were linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and digestive disorders including gastritis and gastroesophageal reflux disease
- Wen stressed the findings are correlational, not causal — abnormal sleep duration may be a sign of broader poor health rather than a direct driver of organ aging
- Mediation analysis suggested short sleep connects more directly to late-life depression, while long sleep may influence depression through pathways reflected in aging clocks for the brain and adipose tissue, a distinction Wen said argues against treating both groups the same way
Why it matters: By mapping 23 aging clocks across 17 organ systems in roughly 500,000 people, the Columbia team reframes sleep as a whole-body health signal rather than a brain-only one, and identifies a narrower, lower sweet spot (6.4–7.8 hours) than the 7–9 hours commonly promoted — with implications for how clinicians approach short vs. long sleepers presenting with the same conditions.
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