Sleep well! (and reduce your risk of dementia)
It is clear that sleep quality and memory performance are linked. But good sleep can also reduce the risk of dementia and premature mortality. Although it has been known for some time that people with dementia have difficulty sleeping, two new studies suggest that poor sleep may also increase the risk of dementia.
Sleep 6 to 8 hours!
In the first study from 2013/14, 2800 people aged 65 and older were examined for their sleep behaviour. Five years later, they examined who had developed dementia or who had died.
The researchers found that those individuals who slept less than five hours doubled their risk of dementia. In contrast to those who got six to eight hours of sleep.
The second study looked at 8000 participants from France, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland. The data showed that people between 50 and 70 who slept less than six hours over a long period of time had a 30 per cent higher risk of dementia than people who slept seven hours. The average age for the diagnosis of dementia was 77. In addition to the sleep duration queried, this was confirmed using wearables.
Poor sleep patterns in middle age can lead to dementia.
What is new is that poor and too little sleep in advanced age can lead to dementia. The reasons for this are manifold: shift work, insomnia, responsibility for relatives, anxiety disorders, deadline pressure and many more. Although some of the reasons listed cannot be controlled, some can be influenced: You should pay attention to your sleep duration on a weekly average. One bad night doesn't matter. What matters is the average over weeks, months and years.
These findings were interesting for the researchers not only from a clinical but also from a scientific perspective. There was always a chicken/egg problem when it came to interpreting the data on sleep and dementia. Were people sleeping poorly because of the dementia they already had or did they have dementia because they had poor sleep patterns. By studying relatively young people around 50, evidence was found that poor sleep behaviour can very much promote dementia, albeit 25 years later.
Your brain is flushed when you sleep
Although the link is not fully understood as to how poor sleep promotes dementia, there are assumptions: It is thought that there are deposits of the Alzheimer's protein, beta amyloid. Beta amyloid is the protein in which Alzheimer's is strongly involved. No one knows exactly what the actual function of this protein is. There are increasing signs that it is responsible for the defence against microorganisms in the brain.
During the day, this protein forms in all of us. At night, when we sleep, the structures in our brain that allow beta amyloid to "wash away" shrink.
So the theory is that when we don't get enough sleep, this very process is inhibited, resulting in deposits of beta amyloid that eventually cause dementia.
The good news
The risk of dementia can be reduced with good sleep. Another study from Toronto and Chicago looked at people at genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease. They found that sleep not only prevents the deposition of beta amyloid, but also the deposition of other proteins.
Bottom line
Sleep is more than an interruption to our active lives. Like healthy eating or exercise, sleep is essential for healthy brain function. These two new studies show that the course is already set at 50 or earlier. So the news that six to eight hours of sleep a night is a big risk reduction is all the more encouraging. The researchers still give the hint not to get sleep via pills if you have difficulties, but to prefer non-medication approaches.
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