Professor Andrew Steptoe (Head of Behavioral Science and Health, UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care) said: “Low sleep and depression increase with age, and the mechanisms linking depression with the phenomenon of population aging around the world are new. There is a growing need to better understand depression and sleep deprivation. This study lays an important foundation for future investigations on the interrelationship of genetics, sleep, and depressive symptoms.”
Overall, study participants averaged seven hours of sleep a night. More than 10 percent of people slept less than five hours a night at the beginning of the study period, this increased to more than 15 percent at the end of the study period, and the proportion of participants with depressive symptoms increased by ~3 percent. Points, 8.75-11.47 Up to percent.
Both sleep duration and depression are partially inherited from one generation to the next. Earlier twin studies have shown that depression is about 35 percent genetic, and genetic differences in sleep duration account for 40 percent of the variation.
In the study, data on sleep and depressive symptoms were linked from two ELSA surveys conducted two years apart, because sleep duration and depression fluctuate over time.