Night owls may die younger; drinking and smoking is to blame: Study

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News websites
16 Jun 2023 11:24

Previous studies have demonstrated that night owls, who stay up late and find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, are more prone to have a variety of health issues.

A man holding a cigarette (AFP)

37-year-old research released on Friday revealed that people who like to stay up late are not more likely to die sooner than others who get up early -- as long as they don't use those longer nights for drinking and smoking.

Previous studies have demonstrated that night owls, who stay up late and find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, are more prone to have a variety of health issues.

An extensive study conducted in the UK in 2018 revealed that during a 6.5-year period, evening people had a 10% greater mortality risk than morning people.

While that was definitely worrying news for the world's night owls, that research did not consider factors, such as alcohol consumption, that could be behind those deaths.

Meanwhile, researchers in Finland aimed at finding out more in a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Chronobiology International.

Nearly 24,000 identical same-sex twins, who were asked in 1981 to identify whether they were morning or evening people, participated in the study.

A third said they were somewhat an evening person, while 10% said they definitely were. The rest were morning people.

The evening people tended to be younger and tended to drink and smoke more.

More than 8,700 of the twins had passed away by the time the researchers followed up in 2018.

Over the 37 years, the researchers revealed that the definite night owls had a nine percent higher risk of death from all factors -- a similar rate to the 2018 study.

But that difference was "mainly due to smoking and alcohol," the study said.

The study's lead author, Christer Hublin of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, said as quoted by AFP the results found that night owls can act if they want to lower their risk of an early death.

"Clearly evening people should critically think about the amount of alcohol and tobacco they are using," he said.

The study also failed to mention drugs other than alcohol and tobacco, he said: cocaine, in particular, had been related to people changing from early to late risers.

Researchers headed by Fernando have previously found that night owls had lower mental health, notably anxiety, and that drug use may make the situation worse.