Study Finds Poor Sleep Accelerates Brain Aging More Than Anticipated

The importance of sleep

As we know, sleep is an important step in our cycle, and it is not for nothing that it represents 1/3 of our life according to the experts. Indeed, sleeping well at night is essential, for several reasons.

However, it is necessary to recall that the parameters of a good night's sleep vary from person to person. For example, some people can sleep and feel in great shape, while others still feel fatigue despite 10 hours of sleep.

Sleep also impacts the brain

We mentioned the benefits of sleep for our body, but the latter is just as important for another part: the brain. Sleeping well makes it possible to improve memory and concentration, promote learning or even eliminate toxins accumulated during the day, which can lead to neurological disorders, such as depression or anxiety.

But in the case of bad sleep, the brain can take a blow, more precisely an “old -fashioned”. Indeed, a study carried out by Chinese and Swedish researchers published on September 30 in the journal Ebiomedicine, has shown that if you sleep badly at night, it can age your brain.

The international research team examined sleep behavior and MRI exams of more than 27,000 British adults aged 40 to 70. The quality of the sleep of the participants was evaluated on the basis of five factors: the duration of the sleep, the insomnia, the snoring, the diurnal drowns and the chronotype, which can be simplified by the concept of “highlight and stow-tarden”.

Each of these criteria was worth 1 point. They added the points to obtain the scoring of each participant, “0” being a bad sleep, and “5” a good sleep.

Bad sleep = an older brain

The results of their study showed that people who had a bad sleep (a score between 0 and 1) saw their brains seem older than their real age.

“People who slept badly had a brain that seemed an average year older than their real age. The gap between brain age and chronological age has widened about six months for each drop from a healthy sleep score ”said Dr Abigail Dove, researcher in the Department of Neurobiology, Health Sciences and Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), and the main author of the study.

According to the researchers, the aging of the brain is caused by an increase in the level of inflammation in the body, a normal reaction of the body when it tries to defend itself.

According to Independentmany already existing evidence shows that lack of sleep is a factor that increases inflammation in the body. This new study would therefore confirm this, and to show that there was not only the body that can be impacted, but also the brain.

The lack of sleep, and therefore of elimination of toxins present in the brain, is also a hypothesis which could justify the link between sleep and brain aging, according to the English media.

Source: Independent