Chronic Moderate Sleep Restriction in Older Adults

Summary

Higher rates of mortality have been found both in short sleepers (\< 6 hr/night) and long sleepers (\> 8 hr/night), but there has been little experimental investigation of the effects of chronic, moderate sleep loss in long or average sleepers. Some scientists argue that older adults might be particularly vulnerable to negative effects of sleep loss, whereas other scientists argue that many older adults spend too much time in bed, and that moderate reduction of time-in-bed could help increase the quality of their sleep, and could even promote health and longevity, particularly in long sleepers. At 4 sites across the US, we will conduct a large (200 people), randomized, controlled, 5- year study to examine whether a 1-hour reduction of time spent in bed for 12 weeks has negative or positive effects on multiple health-related outcomes, including inflammation, sleepiness, body weight, mood, glucose regulation, quality of life, incidence of illness, and incidence of automobile accidents in older long sleepers as compared to older average sleepers.

Conditions

• Sleep Disturbance
• Aging

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Sleep restriction

Participants will be asked to reduce their time in bed (TIB) by 60 min below their median baseline TIB, and to maintain this sleep restriction every night for 12 weeks.

BEHAVIORAL

Non-sleep restriction

Participants will be asked to maintain fixed bedtimes, wake-times, times in bed, and napping, consistent with each person's average baseline.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

  collaborator NIH

• University of California, Los Angeles

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Shawn Yougstedt, Ph.d. · University of South Carolina

• Richard Bootzin, Ph.D. · University of Arizona

• Michael Irwin, M.D. · University of California, Los Angeles

• Giardin Jean-Louis, Ph.D. · State University of New York - Downstate Medical Center

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Max Age

80 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-07-01

Primary Completion

2017-08-01

Completion

2018-12-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations