Middle-aged people who sleep poorly, have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, show more signs of deterioration in their brain health in middle age, according to a study published in ‘Neurology‘. However, the study does not prove that lack of sleep accelerates brain aging, but rather shows an association between poor sleep quality and signs of brain aging.
“Previous research has linked lack of sleep with poor performance in thinking and memory later in life, thus increasing the risk of dementia,” says Clémence Cavaillès, from the University of California, San Francisco. “Our study, which used brain scans to determine participants’ brain age, suggests that lack of sleep is linked to nearly three additional years of brain aging already in middle age.”
The study included 589 people with an average age of 40 years at the beginning. Participants completed questionnaires about their sleep both at the beginning of the study and five years later, and underwent brain scans 15 years after starting the study.
The researchers reviewed the participants’ responses to a questionnaire in which they asked about problems falling asleep, type of rest, etc.
The team recorded six poor sleep characteristics for each participant: short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, waking up early, and daytime sleepiness.
Participants were divided into three groups: the low-level group, which had no more than one poor sleep characteristic; the middle group, with between two and three characteristics; and the high group, with more than three. At the beginning of the study, approximately 70% were in the low group, 22% in the medium group, and 8% in the high group.
brain image
Brain damage or shrinkage was assessed through brain imaging of the participants, where the level of brain shrinkage corresponds to a specific age. Using machine learning, they determined the brain age of each participant.
After adjusting for factors such as age, sex, high blood pressure and diabetes, the researchers found that people in the medium group had an average brain age 1.6 years older than those in the low group, while those in the high group had an average brain age 1.6 years older than those in the low group. average brain 2.6 years older.
Among sleep characteristics, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, and early awakening were associated with increased brain age, especially when these poor characteristics were maintained consistently over five years.
“Our findings underscore the importance of addressing sleep problems from an earlier age to preserve brain health,” said Kristine Yaffe, of the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology.
One limitation of the study was that participants self-reported sleep problems, which may have affected the accuracy of the data.
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