Refuting Franklin and Thurber: Early to Bed, Early to Rise to Make Men Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise?

Although Benjamin Franklin has contributed much to modern society both as a scientist and a statesman, it is still not known whether his phrase of wisdom, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise" is supported by clinical evidence. Furthermore, it has been argued by James Thurber that in fact "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy and wealthy and dead".

Fortunately, to help answer this earth-shattering dilemma, a team of researchers from Boston explored the Franklin and Thurber hypotheses in a recent issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. They examined the associations of sleeping patterns with morbidity, educational attainment and income level in 949 men. Their directly concluded that "Our results refute both the Franklin and Thurber hypotheses. Early to bed and early to rise is not associated with health, wealth or wisdom".

I am certain as result of this groundbreaking study that billions of men can now rest each night and sleep soundly and not have excessive guilt waking up the next morning.

Next step: replication this study in women-- afterall Franklin and Thurber had only made conjectures about men and not women. Perhaps these 18th early 20th century wisemen were a bit sexist and were not concerned about the health and wealth of women who were expected to wake up earlier and prepare breakfast for their husbands and household masters each morning.

Reference: Mukamal KJ, Wellenius GA, Mittleman MA. Early to bed and early to rise: does it matter? CMAJ. 2006 Dec 5;175(12):1560-2.