Sleep duration outside 6.4–7.8 hours linked to accelerated biological aging

An analysis of 23 biological aging clocks across multiple organs found that both short and long sleep are associated with faster aging in the brain, heart, lungs, and other systems. The lowest aging levels occurred in people sleeping about 6.4 to 7.8 hours per day. These sleep patterns were also tied to a wide range of diseases, supporting the idea that sleep is crucial for coordinated organ health.

The study drew on roughly half a million UK Biobank participants, applying machine learning to construct aging clocks from imaging data, organ-specific proteins, and blood molecules. These clocks spanned 17 organ systems, allowing researchers to observe that both insufficient and excessive sleep correlated with accelerated aging across multiple bodily systems, not just the brain.

The research team, led by Junhao Wen at Columbia, emphasized that aging clocks typically offer a single whole-body estimate, but organs age at different rates. By linking sleep duration to these multi-organ clocks, the findings reinforce the view that sleep supports coordinated health across a brain-body network involving metabolism and immunity.