5 Pct Indians Suffer From Sleep Disorders: Study

Bangalore: Nearly 5 percent of Indians aged 50 years and above are suffering from sleep disorders says the first ever pan-African and Asian analysis of sleep problems. Indian women (6.5 percent) outnumber men (4.3 percent), when it comes to disturbed sleep. And, majority of them suffer from psychiatric conditions like depression and anxiety, reported Koutenya Sinha for Times of India.

Further, it was noted that around 4 percent Indian men who reported extreme nocturnal sleep problems suffered from severe depression, while 3 percent reported severe anxiety. The count with women was similar with 3.79 percent reporting severe depression and 2.8 percent suffering from severe anxiety.

Researchers found 16.6 percent of the population suffered from insomnia and other severe sleep disturbances in the countries surveyed, and around 20 percent found in the general adult population in the West.  The findings also revealed that sleeplessness epidemic affects an estimated 150 million in developing world.

Researchers from the Warwick Medical School analyzed the sleep quality of 24,434 women and 19,501 men  aged 50 years and above in eight rural global locations like Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia and Kenya.