People sleeping under 5 hours twice as likely to get serious condition | Personal Finance | Finance
Recent studies suggest that the amount of sleep you get in your 50s, 60s and 70s could increase your dementia risk by 30%.
A study conducted by Harvard Medical School in 2020 examined thousands of individuals over 65.
It compared their self-reported sleep patterns with dementia diagnosis, development or even death in the subsequent five years.
Those who slept for less than five hours each night were twice as likely to develop dementia.
They were also twice as likely to die compared to those who slept between six and eight hours each night.
However, simply sleeping longer may not be the solution as the study also found a link between getting nine or more hours of sleep a night and dementia.
However, researchers noted this link disappeared when they adjusted their models to account for other contributing factors like age and chronic conditions.
It’s not just the duration of your sleep that could potentially harm your brain health as people who usually struggle to fall asleep initially, taking 30 minutes or longer to nod off, also had a 45% increased risk of dementia.
Poor sleep quality could also significantly heighten the risk of death. The scientists stated: “These results suggest that short sleep duration is the most important predictor of incident dementia and all-cause mortality.”
Strangely, researchers uncovered no direct links between conditions like sleep apnea or even loud snoring with dementia or all-cause mortality.
People aged over 50 and getting less than six hours of sleep at night could be facing a 30% increased risk of dementia, according to a second European study.
However, the silver lining reported by the same study indicates that even just one additional hour of shut-eye could mitigate this elevated threat.
The connection between our sleeping patterns and dementia could be due to the brain’s cleaning activities while we’re asleep.
When the body is sleeping, the brain is able to speed up its clearance process to fight back the build up of proteins and plaques believed to be the cause of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
During midlife, there’s a number of reasons our sleeping patterns may start to go off the rails, from juggling family and work life to developing conditions that might disturb sleep. The researchers urged for more studies looking into specific recommendations for older adults to improve their sleep and reduce their dementia risk.
