Short sleep contributes to greater dementia risk, study suggests

Middle-aged adults who sleep six hours or less may face an increased risk for dementia, compared to those who regularly clock in seven hours of shut-eye, according to a large-scale study spanning 25 years.

"Persistent short sleep duration was associated with an increased risk of dementia compared to those with persistent normal sleep duration," study authors wrote. A team of French researchers published findings in the Nature Communications journal on Tuesday, stemming from a Whitehall II study involving nearly 8,000 British participants. Dementia is a broad term for neurodegenerative disease affecting memory, attention and communication, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which estimates 5 million adults aged 65 and over were living with dementia in 2014. The agency projects this figure will more than double to nearly 14 million by 2060.