Sleep duration and midlife women’s health

Abstract

Sleep is mandatory for life and therefore any sleep deprivation or disruption might carry ill-health outcomes. The optimal night’s sleep duration seems to be around 7 h, as too little sleep and too much sleep have been found to be associated with a variety of changes in well-being, physical and psychological parameters. This mini-review enlightens the potential health consequences of sleep disturbance relevant to menopause and midlife women’s health. These include cardiovascular and metabolic derangements, cognitive impairment, osteoporosis, and cancer-related perspectives. Still, the current knowledge suggests that, even if statistically significant associations are detected, the absolute excessive risks are relatively small or modest.

Keywords:

• Sleep duration
• menopause
• midlife health
• cardiovascular disease
• hypertension
• diabetes mellitus
• cognition
• osteoporosis

Conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Source of funding

Nil.