Lack of sleep at 40 ages brain by up to three years

He dream improves the mind, restores the body and strengthens almost all body systems. Experts agree that a healthy sleep pattern is essential to manage various health factors such as weight, blood pressure or risk type 2 diabetes.

If it’s important to sleep well at any age, a new study published in the journal Neurologypays special attention to middle-aged people, from 40 to 59 years old. Research from the University of California, San Francisco confirms that people with poor sleep quality, including difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, more signs of poor brain health in late middle age.

Teacher Clémence Cavaillesstudy author, explains: “Previous studies have linked lack of sleep to poor thinking and memory skills later in life, increasing the risk of dementia,” and adds: “Our study, which used brain scans to determine brain age, suggests that sleep deprivation is associated with almost three additional years of brain aging already in middle age.”

Among sleep characteristics, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, and early morning awakenings were associated with increasing brain age, especially when people had these poor sleep characteristics consistently for five years.

The study involved 589 people, average age 40 years old at the beginning of studies. Participants completed sleep questionnaires both at the start of the study and five years later. Participants underwent brain scans 15 years after the start of the study.

Six Characteristics of Sleep

The researchers analyzed participants’ responses to questions such as: “Do you usually have trouble falling asleep?” “Do you usually wake up several times a night?” and “Do you usually wake up too early?” They recorded the number of six characteristics of poor sleep for each participant:

1. short sleep duration
2. Poor sleep quality
3. Difficulty falling asleep
4. It’s hard to sleep
5. Wake up early in the morning
6. Daytime sleepiness

The participants were divided into three groups. Participants in the low sleep group did not have more than one characteristic of poor sleep. People in the middle group had two to three, and people in the older group had more than three. At the start of the study, about 70% were in the low group, 22% in the medium group, and 8% in the high group.

Researchers studied brain imaging participants whose level of brain shrinkage corresponds to a certain age. The researchers used machine learning to determine the age of each participant’s brain.

After adjusting for factors such as age, gender, high blood pressure and diabetes, the researchers found that people in the middle group had an average brain age that was 1.6 years older than people in the low group, while people those in the high group had an average brain age 1.6 years older than those in the low group. brain age is 2.6 years older.