A couple months ago the media was trumpeting research claiming too much sleep could shorten a person’s life span. Now researchers at Pennsylvania State University claim that women are much better sleepers than men and speculate this might explain why women live so much longer, on average, than men.
The Pennsylvania study, which only examined a total of 25 men and women, found that men who missed two hours of sleep per night had elevated levels of tumor necrosis factor, which may (or may not) contribute to obesity and diabetes. The study also found that women experienced “deep” sleep for 70 minutes per night compared to only 40 minutes of “deep” sleep for men.
The BBC actually managed to get an incredibly silly comment from Neil Stanley, of the Human Psychopharmacology Research Unit at Surrey University, who said that it was difficult to generalize from such a small study, but then went on to suggest that the widespread 24/7 culture in Western industrialized nations is bound to cause problems. According to Stanley,
We are going against nature, and if we do that, then we are always like to have to pay a price.
Please, give me anything but the silly “it’s not natural argument.”
The reality is that while there are likely to be sexual differences that affect lifespan, in Western industrialized nations men and women’s life expectancy are gradually closing with each other. In Great Britain, women on average now only live six years longer than men. If factors such as disproportionately male representation in dangerous occupations were factored in, the differential would be even closer.
Source:
Sleep ‘key to longer life’. The BBC, July 15, 2002.