Fatal familial insomnia is a rare, inherited disorder that leads to death within 18 to 24 months, providing evidence that insufficient sleep is fatal in humans.

“this disorder fatal familial insomnia says it in the name that essentially human beings how older people typically survive it usually takes about 18 to 24 months before they die but the problem is this is not they wake up one day and they are no longer sleep at all there's a gradual thing so it's kind of like it masquerades is just typical insomnia first restless nights for the first two or three months then it gets worse then you're only sleeping for hours then you know by 12:00 you're really sleeping two hours how much of this is genetic versus environmental versus we don't know it's strongly heritable that we know so it's within the Mendelian sort of you know pool of genetic disorders and it's testable we know the gene interestingly it what seems like it's a single yeah and it's a prion protein gene abnormality”