Struggling to get a good night’s sleep? You may be putting yourself at a greater risk for developing dementia, according to research presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2014.
For their study, researchers tracked a large cohort of mostly male individuals to see if interrupted sleep led to an increased likelihood of developing dementia. After examining the data, researchers concluded that participants with a sleep disturbance had a 30 percent increased risk of developing dementia, and that risk jumped to about 80 percent if the patient also suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“Our results further the very interesting body of data that sleep problems do seem to be a risk factor for developing dementia,” said lead investigator Kristine Yaffe, MD. “This is a very robust finding; it is not a huge finding, but it is robust.”
Sleep Issues
Researchers noted that a large number of Americans are afflicted with some type of sleep disorder, with some of the more common conditions being:
- Sleep Apnea
- Insomnia
- Poor Sleep Quality
- Inability to Stay Asleep or Fall Back Asleep
As we’ve noted in other sleep-focused blogs, sleep is a restorative process where your brain essentially cleanses itself after a hard day’s work. Throughout your day, toxins and other molecular deteris make their way into our brain cells. Sleeps acts as a “time out” for your brain where it can flush the toxins out of its system. As one previous study put it, when you are asleep your brain is functioning just like a washing machine. It’s full of dirty particles that need to be cleansed. If you don’t sleep long enough for your brain to complete this cycle, toxic particles can build up in your brain, which can eventually lead to dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Yaffe added that individuals who have a family history of mental health issues should take steps to ensure they are getting the necessary amount of sleep.
“I think it is very important because of course if one could prevent dementia by treating sleep problems by, say, using CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] for sleep-disordered breathing or by treating insomnia, this would be a really wonderful intervention to maybe prevent dementia,” concluded Dr. Yaffe. “There’s a lot of interest in this as a possible area for intervention.”
Related source Medscape
