Too little or too much sleep is linked to faster ageing throughout the body

Nature, Published online: 20 May 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01564-y

A multimodal analysis reveals a ‘U-shaped’ association between sleep duration and biological ageing across various organ systems, with too much or not enough sleep being linked with accelerated organ ageing. The study also shows that biological ageing differentially mediates the relationship between extremes in sleep duration and late-life depression.