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Spending more time in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep was associated with a lower risk of 83 diseases, including heart failure, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease.

A research team led by Professor Sun Shengzhi of Capital Medical University in China analyzed data from 95,559 participants in the UK Biobank. The findings were published in the international journal PLOS Medicine.

REM sleep is a stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements. During this stage, the brain remains relatively active and dreams are more common, while muscle activity is largely suppressed, preventing the body from physically acting out dreams. REM sleep typically occurs in cycles of about 90 minutes throughout the night, with each period becoming longer toward morning. Deep sleep, meanwhile, is a different stage of non-REM sleep.

The researchers applied a deep-learning algorithm to wrist accelerometer data collected continuously from participants over seven days. They used the data to estimate the amount of REM sleep, deep sleep, and light sleep, as well as total sleep time, time spent awake after falling asleep, and night-to-night variations in sleep patterns. They then examined the associations between these sleep characteristics and more than 1,000 diseases based on medical records collected over an average follow-up period of 8.9 years.

The results showed that longer REM sleep was associated with a lower risk of 83 diseases, including heart failure, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. Longer periods of deep sleep were also associated with a lower risk of seven diseases, including type 2 diabetes and major depressive disorder.

In contrast, greater night-to-night irregularity in sleep duration and longer periods of wakefulness after falling asleep were associated with a higher risk of several conditions, including anxiety disorders and substance use disorders.

Longer total sleep duration was not consistently associated with a lower disease risk. Sleep duration showed significant nonlinear associations with 86 disease outcomes, with the risk of 69 of these being lowest among people who slept between six and eight hours per day. Those who slept less than five hours per night had the highest risk for 37 diseases.

The researchers noted that self-reported sleep information often does not accurately reflect objectively measured sleep patterns, which is a limitation when assessing actual sleep behavior. They also emphasized that because this was an observational study, the findings do not establish a causal relationship between sleep patterns and disease risk.

The researchers concluded that, among middle-aged and older adults, six to eight hours of sleep was associated with a sleep-stage distribution that was, in turn, linked to a lower risk of multiple diseases.

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