A yearlong project conducted by a consensus panel of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society that included Wayne State University School of Medicine's M. Safwan Badr, M.D., has led to the first recommendation by experts that adults obtain seven or more hours of sleep per night to avoid the health risks of chronic inadequate sleep.

Dr. Badr, professor and chief of the School of Medicine's Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, and past president of the AASM, co-wrote the guidelines, published as the statement Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: A Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society in the June issue of the journal SLEEP.

The panel of 15 sleep medicine and research experts used a modified RAND Appropriateness Method to develop a recommendation regarding the sleep duration or sleep duration range that promotes optimal health in adults aged 18 to 60 years.

"Nobody had sat down and looked at all of the evidence in aggregate," Dr. Badr told Today.com for a report. "This is an attempt to have one answer to tell everyone."

People who regularly get less than seven hours of sleep experience many health problems, including weight gain, hypertension, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and other cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. Sleep deprivation can also cause people to feel less alert and experience confused thinking and mood swings.

Dr. Badr, who sees patients at the Wayne State University Physician Group's CPAP Clinic in Detroit, hopes the recommendation will help people realize the importance of sleep to their health.

"Sleep well to live well. This is not a matter of opinion. There is strong science behind it," he said.