If you find yourself getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, chances are you’re perfectly normal. That’s according to medical experts, who say that needing to get up once to use the bathroom at night is nothing out of the ordinary if you’re under the age of 60. Anything more than once can be caused by a variety of issues, including drinking too much later in the evening and having too many caffeinated drinks throughout the day. Using the bathroom excessive amounts could be a sign of a range of conditions — from the less serious UTI to alarming diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, prostate cancer, or even heart disease. However, the threshold of what’s considered “normal” changes with age. For the over-70s, waking up to use the bathroom twice at night is relatively normal, and once you get into your 90s, this could increase to four times a night. That’s because as the body ages it produces less of the hormone ADH (antidiuretic hormone), which regulates how much water we hold onto and helps prevent dehydration. For those who are getting up too much at night, doctors recommend not drinking anything after 8 p.m. instead of the normally recommended 10 p.m.
