People who sleep fewer than six hours a night are more likely to die early, researchers have found in a study they claim provides ‘unequivocal evidence’ of a link between sleep deprivation and premature death.

They discovered that people who slept for less than six hours each night were 12 per cent more likely to die prematurely – before the age of 65 – than those who slept the recommended six to eight hours a night.

The team from the University of Warwick and Federico II University Medical School in Naples analysed 16 studies involving a total of 1.3 million people before reaching their conclusions.