"Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool". Was Napoleon right?

New ideas in chronobiology - Dr. Dieter Kunz of the Charité Hospital in Berlin talks about some of the latest ideas in chronobiology, and to what extent they do - and don't - affect our daily lives:



From the TV program Tomorrow Today | DW.DE http://bit.ly/USMQlx

7.2% Decrease in Work Hours of U.S. Physicians Between 1996 and 2008

After remaining stable through the early 1990s, mean hours worked per week decreased by 7.2% between 1996 and 2008 among all physicians (from 55 hours per week in 1996-1998 to 51 hours per week in 2006-2008.

Excluding resident physicians, whose hours decreased by 9.8% due to duty hour limits imposed in 2003, nonresident physician hours decreased by 5.7%.

Physician fees decreased nationwide by 25% between 1995 and 2006, coincident with the decrease in physician hours.

A steady decrease in hours worked per week during the last decade was observed for all physicians, which was temporally and geographically associated with lower physician fees.

References:
Trends in the Work Hours of Physicians in the United States, February 24, 2010, Staiger et al. JAMA 303 (8): 747.

From Happy Hospitalist:

"That means your doctor earns 25% less today than they did just a decade ago. If you went to college and joined a company that said up front you would be paid 25% less in a decade than you were paid on the day you were hired, would you join them?

Why are physicians working fewer hours, a trend unique to doctors? The conclusion was reduced pay. Physicians just don't seem inclined to spend long hours in the office and hospitals to sacrifice their family life for the life of their patients when the the economic reward of doing so just isn't there.

I've talked with many subspecialists at Happy's hospital about the declining payment for their efforts. They all tell me exactly the same thing. They are going to work less and limit their hours as payment reductions come down the pipeline."

Image source: sxc.hu

People who get less than 6 hours sleep per night have an increased risk of dying prematurely

People who get less than 6 hours sleep per night had an increased risk of dying prematurely in a recent study. Those who slept for less than that amount of time were 12% more likely to die early, though researchers also found a link between sleeping more than 9 hours and premature death.

The study aggregated decade-long studies from around the world involving more than 1.3 million people and found "unequivocal evidence of the direct link" between lack of sleep and premature death.

Just one sleepless night can hamper the body's ability to use insulin to process sugar in the bloodstream. Insulin sensitivity is not fixed in healthy people, but depends on the duration of sleep in the preceding night.

"Society pushes us to sleep less and less," one of the study investigators said, adding that about 20% of the population in the United States and Britain sleeps less than 5 hours.

Adults typically need between 7 and 9 hours sleep a night. If you sleep little, you can develop diabetes, obesity, hypertension and high cholesterol.

References:
Bad night's sleep can hamper body's insulin use. Reuters.

Image source: A halo around the Moon. Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.