Can sleeping too much lead to early death? Study reveals the '6 deadly health sins'

Researchers state that the six deadly health sins are smoking, excessive alcohol drinking, sitting too much, inactivity and sleeping too much. These deadly sins could increase the chances of early death, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

For oversleeping, researchers found that there is a 44 percent increased early mortality for people in the study. They looked at more than 200,000 people over six years from 2016. However, sleeping less than seven hours every meant had a 9 percent increased mortality risk. The participants were aged 45 years and older. The details of the study which and is considered to be one of the largest studies are published online in PLOS Medicine.

Oversleeping or longer sleep could mean that there is something wrong with the body. Staying in bed for longer or oversleeping does not guarantee quality sleepy.

"One of the possible explanations is 'reverse causality.' Long sleeping times could be indicative of an underlying, undiagnosed disease," said Emmanuel Stamatakis, one of the authors from the Charles Perkin Centre.

"In the survey, people were asked 'How long did you sleep?' This most likely elicits an answer to the question: 'How long were you in bed?' he said. "This says nothing about the quality of the sleep. So, reported long sleep duration could, in fact, be indicative of fragmented, restless and poor-quality sleep."

According to lead author Dr. Melody Ding, combining lack of exercise with too much sitting and sleeping could lead to a "triple whammy effect." Their findings show that these behaviors should be taken more seriously, RT reports.

With excessive deadly drinking on its own, it is considered to be the least risky one among the six at only 8 percent. However, Stamatakis stated that the age group in the study are fairly old and may not drink alcohol that much. For the general population, they found that it was high risk and the effects can be found with moderate to heavy alcohol consumption.

According to Stuff, those who do all six deadly health sins have more than five times the chance of dying during the study than those whose lifestyles are healthier.

Combinations of the six deadly health sins could double or even triple the risk of early death according to the researchers.

"The take-home message from this research—for doctors, health planners and researchers - is that if we want to design public health programs that will reduce the massive burden and cost of lifestyle-related disease we should focus on how these risk factors work together rather than in isolation," said Professor Adrian Bauman, a co-author, via EurekAlert.