4 ms·

My mother read this book. Now she's certain she has a serious condition, because she 'only' sleeps six hours per night. She's stressed out because the book says

by mabbo 4y ago

My mother read this book. Now she's certain she has a serious condition, because she 'only' sleeps six hours per night. She's stressed out because the book says if she doesn't get eight hours of sleep, she'll get cancer. She's completely healthy otherwise (well, other than recovering from COVID just now). If you're going to make money giving people health advice, you have an ethical duty to be truthful to a level so high that it's hard to criticize it. Guzey shows here that Walker is not at that level.

deleted 4y ago
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nickff 4y ago
>"She's stressed out because the book says if she doesn't get eight hours of sleep, she'll get cancer." I've read the book, and don't think it said that. Have you read the book?
- timr 4y ago
  I have. He doesn't come right out and say "lack of sleep causes cancer", but he insinuates it, repeatedly, by citing associative studies. This is the kind of stuff that infuriates most scientists -- we go out of our way to draw strong conclusions based on weak evidence, but people who are willing to do so can usually capture the public imagination with clear narratives and scary anecdotes. Even if the studies cited in "Why We Sleep" are correctly done, they're such extraordinary claims that they require extensive confirmation before they're to be believed. Laypeople don't understand this, so authors can cite "the scientific literature", sound authoritative, and still mislead.
  - thenerdhead 4y ago
    I’m a layperson who read this book and I understand that consistent sleep leads to good health and inconsistent sleep could lead to health issues. How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues? It makes sense in many ways. It’s like the old joke of when someone tells you that oxygen is slowly killing you. Most high school science teachers will tell you that fun fact, but you don’t lose sleep over it.
    - timr 4y ago
      > How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues? If there's no evidence, or only very poor evidence, then you're being misled. > It makes sense in many ways. Lots of things make sense, but are not proven (these are called "hypotheses"), or worse, not true at all ("fallacies"). Without proof, you can't tell one from the other.
      - joenot443 4y ago
        To pile on, I was also struck by the potential for a sleep-cancer connection so I checked NCBI and found a meta analysis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6249821/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6249821/ “Sixty-five studies from 25 articles were included, involving 1,550,524 participants and 86,201 cancer cases. The categorical meta-analysis revealed that neither short nor long sleep duration was associated with increased cancer risk” I imagine if a similar analysis was done with rates of exercise, smoking, or hydration, we’d see a notable effect. My position now is that sleep is incredibly important, but perhaps not to the extent made out in the book.
        timr 4y ago
        > My position now is that sleep is incredibly important, but perhaps not to the extent made out in the book. I agree. In general, people take criticism of this particular book, and extrapolate that criticism to mean that lack of sleep is not bad. We can all agree that sleep is good, but still disagree with the specific, wilder claims made in Why We Sleep.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues? First of all, "consistent sleep" and "health issues" are so vague that can even refer to common sense advice that you don't need a book to tell you, any doctor could. The book doesn't keep at that soundbite level, but gives specific ranges, arguments, and advice. That is what are misleading. "How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues?" Cancer is a potential issue of almost everything. If the chance of something particular causing it is existing but miniscule to the point of being irrelevant and someone overplays it, while pretending to give scientic advice and bogus numbers of what to do to avoid it, then you're mislead. The same way "don't drink over two glasses of water per day, you can die of water toxemia" is misleading, even if drinking too much water (above a gallon in a span of a few hours) can indeed lead to water toxemia. For example, book makes claims about what should be our sleep duration range, which are wrong and misleading. Second, the books makes claims about the effects of stepping out of that range that are also misleading. For learning about how much you should sleep and what you can get if you don't, it's worse than "gym bro science"...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dahart 4y ago
  From the article: “Walker claims that sleeping less than six or seven hours a night doubles one’s risk of cancer – this is not supported by the scientific evidence”
schuke 4y ago
The book does also say some people with certain gene only need 4 hours of sleep. She could be in this category and is only sleep more.

by mabbo 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nickff 4y ago

>"She's stressed out because the book says if she doesn't get eight hours of sleep, she'll get cancer." I've read the book, and don't think it said that. Have you read the book?

timr 4y ago
I have. He doesn't come right out and say "lack of sleep causes cancer", but he insinuates it, repeatedly, by citing associative studies. This is the kind of stuff that infuriates most scientists -- we go out of our way to draw strong conclusions based on weak evidence, but people who are willing to do so can usually capture the public imagination with clear narratives and scary anecdotes. Even if the studies cited in "Why We Sleep" are correctly done, they're such extraordinary claims that they require extensive confirmation before they're to be believed. Laypeople don't understand this, so authors can cite "the scientific literature", sound authoritative, and still mislead.
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  I’m a layperson who read this book and I understand that consistent sleep leads to good health and inconsistent sleep could lead to health issues. How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues? It makes sense in many ways. It’s like the old joke of when someone tells you that oxygen is slowly killing you. Most high school science teachers will tell you that fun fact, but you don’t lose sleep over it.
  - timr 4y ago
    > How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues? If there's no evidence, or only very poor evidence, then you're being misled. > It makes sense in many ways. Lots of things make sense, but are not proven (these are called "hypotheses"), or worse, not true at all ("fallacies"). Without proof, you can't tell one from the other.
    - joenot443 4y ago
      To pile on, I was also struck by the potential for a sleep-cancer connection so I checked NCBI and found a meta analysis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6249821/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6249821/ “Sixty-five studies from 25 articles were included, involving 1,550,524 participants and 86,201 cancer cases. The categorical meta-analysis revealed that neither short nor long sleep duration was associated with increased cancer risk” I imagine if a similar analysis was done with rates of exercise, smoking, or hydration, we’d see a notable effect. My position now is that sleep is incredibly important, but perhaps not to the extent made out in the book.
      - timr 4y ago
        > My position now is that sleep is incredibly important, but perhaps not to the extent made out in the book. I agree. In general, people take criticism of this particular book, and extrapolate that criticism to mean that lack of sleep is not bad. We can all agree that sleep is good, but still disagree with the specific, wilder claims made in Why We Sleep.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues? First of all, "consistent sleep" and "health issues" are so vague that can even refer to common sense advice that you don't need a book to tell you, any doctor could. The book doesn't keep at that soundbite level, but gives specific ranges, arguments, and advice. That is what are misleading. "How am I being misled if cancer is one of those potential issues?" Cancer is a potential issue of almost everything. If the chance of something particular causing it is existing but miniscule to the point of being irrelevant and someone overplays it, while pretending to give scientic advice and bogus numbers of what to do to avoid it, then you're mislead. The same way "don't drink over two glasses of water per day, you can die of water toxemia" is misleading, even if drinking too much water (above a gallon in a span of a few hours) can indeed lead to water toxemia. For example, book makes claims about what should be our sleep duration range, which are wrong and misleading. Second, the books makes claims about the effects of stepping out of that range that are also misleading. For learning about how much you should sleep and what you can get if you don't, it's worse than "gym bro science"...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dahart 4y ago
From the article: “Walker claims that sleeping less than six or seven hours a night doubles one’s risk of cancer – this is not supported by the scientific evidence”

schuke 4y ago

The book does also say some people with certain gene only need 4 hours of sleep. She could be in this category and is only sleep more.