Why does sleeping more than eight or seven hours increase the odds for a stroke?
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As others have pointed out, this is a very common problem of not realizing the difference between correlation and causation. For basic science literacy I think this is the most important thing for people to understand.
there is a correlation between sleeping more than average, and having a stroke . i’m not sure how the studies were done, but it could be that they survey people who had strokes and asked about how much sleep these people tend to get on average before hand. or you could survey people about their sleep, and for people who sleep more than average, you could do a study, where you follow them for a number of years and see what percentage get strokes compared to the general population.
when we see these correlations, it is tempting to assume that one thing directly causes the other. But, as others have said in their posts, here, there could be many explanations that do not require extra sleeping, being a direct, causative factor of strokes. For example, sleep apnea puts people at higher risk for strokes. Also, people with sleep apnea often do not feel rested, so they may sleep more hours than usual.
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