Poor Sleep Can Be Linked to Alzheimer’s
There’s nothing like a great night’s sleep, right? Well, sleep is doing more than making sure you feel good and refreshed, it can also help stave off Alzheimer’s.
Bad Sleep Can Be Linked to Alzheimer’s
What’s the connection between bad sleep and Alzheimer’s?
Well, chronic poor sleep causes a build-up of beta-amyloid and tau, proteins that have been connected to Alzheimer’s. It’s the quality of sleep that’s the focus, not the length.
Good quality sleep is being in slow-wave sleep, or deep sleep. Chronic disruptions of this wave are what builds up these proteins.
The study involved a group of healthy participants between 35 and 65, who each undertook 2 sleep experiments a month apart. In both experiments, participants were asked to complete a sleep diary at home for between 5 days and 2 weeks. They also wore sensors to track their movements during sleep.
At the end of the period, they spent a night asleep in the laboratory where they had their brain-waves tracked and, the following morning, they each had a lumbar puncture taken. While asleep in the laboratory setting, all participants wore headphones. One group had no noises played to them, and the other was played a series of beeps of increasing loudness when it was detected they had entered slow-wave sleep.
The goal was to keep them out of deep wave sleep but not wake them up.
The Sleep Results
The results, based on data from 17 participants, revealed that disruption of slow-wave-sleep had an impact. The team found the average levels of beta-amyloid were about 10% higher when the beeps were played.
So poor sleep causes more of the proteins that create the plaque that causes Alzheimer’s. This is only with chronic poor sleep, one bad night will not affect you.
Let’s all hope we get a good sleep tonight!
To read the original article, click here.
*This article was originally published in 2018 and was brought over from the previous site*