Older adults are getting more shut-eye than younger people are, and the most exhausted of all are women 18 to 24. At least that's what researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia contend based on their study published in the March issue of "Sleep." Lead author Michael A. Grandner, PhD and his colleagues wrote that their findings "challenge the common wisdom that subjective problems with nighttime sleep and daytime tiredness are more common in older adults."
Previous studies of sleep and aging have had varying results so Gardner and his team analyzed data from the 2006 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. According to MedPageToday, a total of 155,877 participants nationwide answered questions about how often within the previous two weeks they had trouble falling or staying asleep, and on how many days they felt tired. The researchers found that poor health was a bigger predictor of sleep problems than normal aging.
Based on their observations, the authors caution that their findings "challenge the general clinical practice of ignoring these problems as potentially normative when they are reported by older adults -- when older adult patients complain of sleep difficulties or fatigue, these complaints do not necessarily reflect normal aging."
