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When it comes to keeping the brain in working order, don’t underestimate the value of a good night’s sleep. Research by Stanford University scientists, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, found that too little sleep — or too much — can be disruptive to brain health.
Scientists discovered that sleeping six hours or less was not only associated with memory loss but also with elevated levels of beta-amyloid. According to the Alzheimer's Association, when high amounts of beta-amyloid protein build up, they can form toxic plaques that interfere with cell-to-cell signaling in the brain. These plaques are a defining feature of Alzheimer’s disease, which destroys memory pathways and other brain functions and afflicts more than 40 million people worldwide.
On the other hand, scientists observed that sleep lasting nine hours or more per night was linked with worse executive function (mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully).
Both too much and too little sleep were tied to declines in self-reported cognitive function, including reasoning, understanding, and paying close attention. Both extreme sleep patterns also appeared to be connected to multiple negative lifestyle outcomes, including higher BMI (body mass index), greater depressive symptoms, and more time spent napping during the day.
Lead researcher Joseph R. Winer, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in neurology at Stanford University in California, noted, however, that sleeping nine hours or more was not associated with early markers of Alzheimer's disease.
“While short sleepers had a pattern of cognitive test performance consistent with early Alzheimer's disease, long sleepers performed worse on other tests, suggesting that short and long sleep may involve different underlying disease processes,” says Dr. Winer.
RELATED: Sleep 101: The Ultimate Guide on How to Get a Better Night’s Sleep
The results among both short and long sleepers highlight the importance of maintaining adequate sleep in later life, according to the study authors.
The researchers defined adequate sleep as seven to eight hours per night, which aligns with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation that adults get at least seven hours of shut-eye. Federal data, however, show that about one-third of the population usually sleep less than the recommended amount.
To conduct the investigation, scientists analyzed data from 4,417 individuals (60 percent women) who had participated in the Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s Disease (A4) study, which was conducted at 67 sites in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan. That study included older individuals ages 65 to 85 with normal thinking and memory function and no outward signs of the disease but who might be at risk of memory loss due to Alzheimer’s.
In related sleep research published in September 2020 in Current Biology, Winer and his team at the University of California in Berkeley followed 32 older adults and observed that participants who experienced more fragmented sleep and less non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) slow-wave sleep at the beginning of the study were more likely to show an increase in beta-amyloid by the study's end.
“If deep, restorative sleep can slow down this disease, we should be making it a major priority,” said Winer in a news release. “And if physicians know about this connection, they can ask their older patients about their sleep quality and suggest sleep as a prevention strategy.”
Claire Sexton, DPhil, the director of scientific programs and outreach with the Alzheimer's Association, notes that while the study adds to evidence linking sleep duration to brain health, it is limited in that sleep duration information was self-reported, so it cannot be inferred that poor sleep causes harm to the brain.
“Good sleep is important for our overall health, including the function of our brain,” she says. “If you have issues sleeping, talk to your doctor.”
The CDC provides tips on how to get a good night’s rest.
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The Link Lonk
October 01, 2021 at 07:22PM
https://www.everydayhealth.com/dementia/sleeping-too-little-or-too-much-may-heighten-dementia-risk-in-older-adults/
Sleeping Too Little May Heighten Dementia Risk in Older Adults - Everyday Health
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