This is the unknown benefit for our health of going to bed early

The findings, published in’ Scientific Reports‘, suggest that children who go to bed earlier have greater diversity in their intestinal flora, compared to those who stay up late.

Specifically, the study shows that certain bacteria that are beneficial to our body, such as Akkermansia muciniphilaassociated with intestinal health and healthy cognitive functions, are more abundant in those children who sleep before 9:30 p.m.

In addition to Akkermansia, other bacteria such as Holdemania filiformis and Alistipes finegoldii were also present in greater quantities in this group.

The researchers analyzed fecal samples from 88 healthy children, between 2 and 14 years old, comparing their intestinal flora based on their sleep patterns.

For two weeks, data was recorded on the time it took them to fall asleep, nighttime awakenings, and sleep quality.

The results suggest that going to bed early not only improves overall well-being, but may also influence amino acid metabolism and neurotransmitter regulation, which could benefit brain development.

This finding underscores the importance of adequate sleep in childhood for both physical and cognitive health.

Microbiome

However, the authors note that more research is still needed to determine whether the microbiome directly influences sleep patterns or whether sleep affects the composition of the microbiome.

“These differences in species diversity and metabolic pathways suggest that sleep patterns significantly influence the gut microbiota,” the researchers write. “Our findings may lead to new pharmacological interventions targeting sleep disorders in children.”

The finding could be correlating sleep patterns with microbiome results or the other way around, where the microbiome influences sleep patterns.

These correlations have great potential to be pursued in multiple directions to determine the causal mechanisms behind the sleep-gut-cognition connection.