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> with no deleterious health effects

Is that actually the case? do we have long term data on these people? or are we just going off of "I feel fine on 5 hours of sleep" stories? Or are you only referring to day to day health effects?

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trollbridge 9 days ago | parent | next [-]

There's been research on it, although not as much as I wish. I'm one of those people who simply needs more sleep than the average, as does my dad... meanwhile, my mother chugs away just fine on 5 hours or so, and is in better health than either of we men are.

People who accomplish a great deal are often one of these "short sleepers" who can subsist on 5 or even 4 hours of sleep a night; think top-of-their-field salesmen, CEOs, and so on. They simply have more time to get things done, and don't have the problem longer sleepers do that getting 4-5 hours on a regular basis would start to affect their performance in every area of life, not to mention their health.

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magneticnorth 9 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a fairly well studied phenomenon known as short sleeper syndrome.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-id...

There are no known health problems caused by this syndrome, according to a Cleveland Clinic overview page: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/short-sleeper...

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NoTeslaThrow 9 days ago | parent [-]

> There are no known health problems caused by this syndrome

Presumably they mean there's no evidence of this syndrome causing health issues (presumably the "known" part is redundant). Trying to position a causal hypothesis as a matter-of-fact-finding is crazy.

EDIT: that article is insanely poorly written and even worse cited. How are these websites giving super-sketchy medical advice even legal. There's no author to hold accountable, no way to remediate the quality of the article, no sources cited, and it's making statements that wouldn't hold up in a court of law.

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Noumenon72 9 days ago | parent [-]

I don't understand what you are objecting to. What would the causal hypothesis be, "this syndrome causes no diseases"? It's just an ordinary claim that if the syndrome is harmful, it's not as immediately apparent as something like sniffing glue. It's saying "this is harmless" can't be ruled out.

	▲	NoTeslaThrow 9 days ago \| parent [-]
		> There are no known health problems caused by this syndrome This is a causal hypothesis framed as a statement. The rhetorics indicate an authoritative statement of fact regarding what the syndrome does cause, which is fundamentally an impossible conclusion to draw empirically. The only hedge in the sentence is "known", which is tautological. Of course, it's impossible to eliminate all variables, making authoritative claims about lack of causal relation impossible. But at least they could make the effort to frame this uncertainty in reasonable terms. > What would the causal hypothesis be, "this syndrome causes no diseases"? EDIT: but c'mon, just read the article. It's extremely bold in its claims with no evidence. "If you have short sleeper syndrome, you don’t need as much sleep as others. You can expect this to continue throughout your life." "Natural short sleepers don’t experience the same health risks as people who don’t get enough sleep." etc. I don't see any semantic difference between this and "this syndrome causes no known diseases". (or "SSS doesn’t pose any known health risks." as the actual quotation states.)