The study analyzed data from people with an average age of 65 and found short sleep was associated with the onset of depressive symptoms.
Consistently sleeping less than five hours a night might raise the risk of developing depressive symptoms, according to a new genetic study led by UCL researchers.
For the study, the researchers used genetic and health data from 7,146 people recruited by the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing , a nationally representative population study in England. The researchers assessed the strength of genetic predisposition among the ELSA participants using findings from previous genome-wide association studies that have identified thousands of genetic variants linked to a higher likelihood of developing depression and short or long sleep.As part of a number of separate analyses to investigate the robustness of their results, the research team also looked at non-genetic associations between depressive symptoms and sleep duration.
Professor Andrew Steptoe said:"Suboptimal sleep and depression increase with age, and with the worldwide phenomenon of population ageing there is a growing need to better understand the mechanism connecting depression and a lack of sleep. This study lays important groundwork for future investigations on the intersection of genetics, sleep, and depressive symptoms."
In the study, data on sleep and depressive symptoms were combined from two ELSA surveys conducted two years apart, as sleep duration and depression are known to fluctuate over time.Depressive symptoms have decreased among older people and they are more satisfied with their lives so far than people at the same age three decades ...
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