Insomnia: It raises death rate and declines kidney functions

Every day, during clinic practice, I find a good number of patients who are not having proper sleep at the night time. This sleeplessness is called Insomnia. According to the statistics, around 10-15% of world population suffers from Chronic Insomnia. In the USA, the number is 35.2% among adult population (according to CDC). If we include transient or occasional insomnia, the number will go up. Actually, it is hard to find a single person who, in the lifetime, didn’t suffer from insomnia.

Source

Let’s have a quick look on the types of insomnia. It is of 3 types:

1. Transient insomnia: Symptoms persists maximum 3 night in a raw
2. Acute or short-term insomnia: persists for several weeks
3. Chronic insomnia: symptoms persist for months, sometimes years.

Insomnia is the most common sleeping disorders (other common sleeping disorders are: REM sleep behavior disorder, sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome (RLS), Periodic limb movements), Narcolepsy or excessive sleep etc.) It is associated with a good number of health related problems notably- Depression, ADHD, Alzheimer’s, raised Blood pressure etc.

A recent study shows that sleeplessness has a negative effect on kidney functions and it contributes to increased mortality rate. The study was conducted by Drs. Csaba Kovesdy and Jun Ling Lu in the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, TN. They conducted this study on a large group of US veterans. At the baseline, they didn’t have any kind of kidney diseases. Among 957587 veterans, 41928 were suffering from chronic insomnia.

Findings of the study are following:

• Median follow up period: 6.1 years
• Death of participants during research: 23.1%
• Rapid decline in kidney functions: 2.7% of participants
• Kidney failure: 0.2% of veterans
• Morality rate: 1.4 times higher in insomniac than non-insomniac
• Kidney functions deterioration: 1.5 times higher in those who were having chronic form of insomnia
• Kidney failure: 2.4 times higher among insomniac

Chronic insomnia is an important and relatively common condition among patients with normal kidney function. Attention to its proper management could have long-ranging positive effects." Dr. Csaba Kovesdy

These study /research results reveal that chronic deprivation of sleep has the role in the development of kidney diseases and in earlier death.