Lots of people may envy Sleeping Beauty for her long, luxurious slumber, but nobody wonders how her health was once she woke up.

Yet studies have documented the health risks of "long sleepers" - those who report needing more than eight hours on the mattress each night.

For example, one study found long sleepers had a 50 percent greater risk of stroke than did those who slept six to eight hours a night. They have higher rates of cardiovascular disease and possibly an increased risk for diabetes.

Most significantly, about 20 studies involving more than a million people have shown that long sleepers have a greater risk of dying than do those who sleep less.

If sleeping too much can be hazardous to one's health, does it follow that long sleepers should try to sleep less?

That's the focus of the unusual research at USC. Youngstedt and colleagues, with a $450,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, are testing long sleepers to see whether restricting their pillow time has any ill effects.

The rationale for the study is a little more complicated than it might sound because, at this point, scientists aren't sure why long sleepers are at risk.

The researcher suggests that it is possible that long sleepers in previous studies have had diseases that had not yet been detected. Or, long sleeping might be a very early symptom of ailments that will not become evident until much later.

Pain, stress, disease and mood disorders all can disturb people's sleep. Its believed lack of sleep is a much bigger problem in our busy society than too much sleep.

Just to complicate matters, there's also some research suggesting that women who are longer sleepers may have a lower risk of breast cancer. A study published in Cancer Research, following 12,000 women for 20 years, showed that those who reported sleeping nine hours or more per night had about one-third the risk of developing breast cancer, compared to women who slept less.

Individuals ask whether long sleepers should try to sleep less, but the researchers feel that it is too early to advise people in that direction. Conversely the researcher is comfortable advising someone who sleeps six hours and feels fine that they don't have to worry about getting eight hours as they may actually live longer.

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