Researchers have long known that people with Alzheimer’s disease experience difficulty sleeping, struggling to fall asleep and/or stay asleep. But in light of several new studies, researchers now suspect that Alzheimer’s may not just cause poor sleep, it may also be caused by poor sleep – at least in part.
At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, researchers found that low-quality sleep was related to an increase in levels of beta-amyloid – a protein that clumps together and forms plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Study participants who got less than five hours of sleep a night or who slept fitfully had higher levels of the protein than those who slept seven or more hours.
Another study from the University of Rochester Medical School found that sleep may help clear the brain of toxic molecules, including beta-amyloid, that contribute to Alzheimer’s. The researchers studied the brains of sleeping mice and discovered that sleep caused brain cells to shrink. This may sound like a bad thing, but shrinking cells allow fluids to flow more freely through the brain and flush away these harmful molecules.
In yet another study, researchers at the University of Toronto monitored the sleep and cognitive functioning of 700 older men and women for six years. Those who slept the most soundly also had the greatest preservation of their memory and thinking skills over the course of the study. This was true even for participants carrying APOE-E4, a gene that increases the risk for Alzheimer’s.
All of the studies suggest that sleep deprivation may contribute to the onset of Alzheimer’s. Yet, it’s still too early to say for sure if this is true – it’s possible that rather than causing the disease, poor sleep may simply be an early symptom. Whether a symptom or a cause, improving the quality of your sleep can only help strengthen your brain. If it turns out that poor sleep does contribute to Alzheimer’s, treating sleep disorders could become a great way to delay or prevent the disease’s onset.
Image courtesy of franky242 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net