What Nighttime Bathroom Trips May Mean
Do you visit the bathroom two or more times a night? Here's something to consider: a checkup.
Nighttime trips can increase with age -- and quite often it's nothing to worry about. But a new study suggests it may be best to rule out any potential underlying problems. In the study, extra nighttime trips were linked to possible health issues.
A Sign of Something Serious?
In the study, men and women age 70 and older who got up twice or more a night to urinate had a higher mortality rate in the coming 3 years compared with the people who visited the latrine just once nightly. And the researchers suspect that, for some, frequent urination could be a sign of an underlying health issue that needs to be addressed, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, sleep apnea or other sleep disorders, kidney problems, or urinary tract infections. The good news? All of these problems are treatable. (Trouble sleeping? Discover the cause with this quiz.)
Don't Panic
Frequent nighttime trips to the bathroom could -- and probably do -- mean nothing for the majority of folks. So don't panic if this sounds at all familiar. Just be sure to bring it up at your yearly doctor exam. And try these free RealAge tools for regaining control of your bladder:
RealAge Benefit:
Actively patrolling your health can make your RealAge as much as 12 years younger.
Association between nocturia and mortality in a community-dwelling elderly population aged 70 years and over: results of a 3-year prospective cohort study in Japan. Nakagawa, H. et al., Journal of Urology 2009 Apr;181(4 suppl):8.
