Getting less than six hours' sleep a night means you're more likely to catch a cold

People who get less than six hours sleep were more than four times as likely to catch a cold than people who manage to get seven hours or more.

Sleep has, for years, been neglected as an important factor in health - but increasingly scientists see it as the ‘third pillar’ of health alongside good diet and getting enough exercise.

But researchers believe many people neglect sleep out of misplaced pride at ‘being busy’ and getting lots of work done.

The research involved monitoring the sleep patterns of 164 adults in a hotel for seven days.

They were then given nose drops containing the common cold virus - and the scientists then checked who then got ill and who did not.

The lightest sleepers - people who got less than five hours of sleep - were four and a half times as likely to get the sniffles.

A host of other factors including social background, cigarette and alcohol use and the temperament of the participants were also tested - but sleep was found to be the main factor.

Aric Prather, assistant professor of psychiatry at University College San Francisco and lead author, said that the findings add to growing evidence emphasizing how important sleep is for health.

‘It goes beyond feeling groggy or irritable. Not getting enough sleep affects your physical health,’ he said.

‘Sleep goes beyond all the other factors that were measured. It didn’t matter how old people were, their stress levels, their race, education or income. 

'It didn’t matter if they were a smoker. 

'With all those things taken into account, statistically sleep still carried the day and was an overwhelmingly strong predictor for susceptibility to the cold virus.’

The study may be a better test of the risks of chronic sleep loss better than typical experiments in which researchers artificially deprive subjects of sleep, because it is based on subjects’ normal sleep behavior.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US has called insufficient sleep a public health epidemic - linked to car crashes, industrial disasters and medical errors.

A 2013 survey by the National Sleep Foundation, found 18 per cent of Britons get less than six hours sleep on work days and 12 per cent on non work days.

Researchers believe that sleep helps the immune system fight off infections.

Sleep has been found to play a part in regulating the levels of T-cells which fight off infection in our bodies.

Professor Prather said; ‘In our busy culture, there’s still a fair amount of pride about not having to sleep and getting a lot of work done.

'We need more studies like this to begin to drive home that sleep is a critical piece to our wellbeing.

(dailymail.co.uk)