White, American-born adults sleep the
longest, according to two studies that shed light on the differences between
the quality and duration of sleep among ethnic groups in the US.
White,
American-born adults sleep longer than African-Americans, Asian-Americans and
Hispanics, according to two new studies that shed light on the differences
between the quality and duration of sleep among ethnic groups in the United
States.
Adequate
and good quality sleep is integral to our health and well-being, medical
experts say. Habitually sleeping shorter or longer than the recommended seven
to nine hours for adults has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular
disease, stroke, accidents, and psychological disorders such as depression.
The
first study from the State University of New York (SUNY) examined 400,000
respondents from the National Health Interview Surveys between 2004 and 2010.
The
researchers found that Americans born in the United States were more likely to
report sleeping longer than the recommended seven to nine hours each night
while African-born Americans were more likely to report sleeping six hours or less,
and Indian-born Americans reported six to eight hours a night.
“We
think social desirability might be playing a role in the self-reported data,”
said lead author Dr. Abhishek Pandey. “We think that insufficient sleep might
be more prevalent in the population than the actual self-report data, but
under- or over-reported to project a better image of one’s perceived sleep
health.”
In the
second study of 439 randomly selected Chicago men and women, sleep researchers
at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago found that
white participants slept significantly longer than the other groups. Asians had
the highest reports of daytime somnolence.
Racial/ethnic
differences in sleep persisted even following statistical adjustment for cardiovascular
disease risk factors associated with poor sleep, such as body mass index, high
blood pressure and diabetes, said Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, principal
investigator and lead author of the Northwestern study.
——
Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
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