# Health effects of insomnia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 6, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-effects-of-insomnia/173297 "2003-05-06T00:14:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![1000monkeys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/7cd45c/32.png) [@1000monkeys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1000monkeys)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-effects-of-insomnia/173297/1 "2003-05-06T00:14:00Z")
In the novel, “Fight Club”, and probably in the film as well, though I don’t specifically recall, a doctor says to the the narrator, “No-one ever died of lack of sleep.” Is this true? or more accurate to ask, is it true that no-one could ever die of lack of sleep? Ignoring the indirect side-effects, what would the long term health effects of an extended period of insomnia be? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-effects-of-insomnia/173297/2 "2003-05-06T02:17:10Z")
Well, there’s familial fatal insomnia, quite rare but uniformly deadly. Its an inherited neurological disorder, one of the first symptoms of which is the inability to fall asleep. It leads inexorably to death. [http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/1999/19990526-sfi.html](http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/1999/19990526-sfi.html) And chronic lack of sleep does make one a bit more likely to fall asleep at the wheel, or fall off a tall building. However, insomnia is really a symptom, not a disease unto itself, and the long-term health effects tend to be more in line with the underlying cause. Here’s a nice clearing-house website on the subject: [http://www.pslgroup.com/INSOMNIA.HTM](http://www.pslgroup.com/INSOMNIA.HTM)