Bad sleep accelerates the aging of the brain and may raise the danger of dementia

Weak sleep is linked to dementia, but it is not clear whether unhealthy sleep habits contribute to the development of dementia or whether they are early symptoms of the disease. In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutt have achieved the relationship between sleeping properties and how old the brain appears in terms of its temporal age.

The study includes 27,500 middle -aged people and the elderly from the UK’s biological bank who underwent MRI (MRI) of the brain. Using machine learning, researchers estimated the biological age of the brain on the basis of more than a thousand virtual patterns of irrigation.

Low -grade inflammation

Participants have been recorded based on five self -reported factors: Chronotype (being a person in the morning/evening), duration of sleep, insomnia, snoring, and drowsiness during the day. Then it was divided into three groups: healthy sleep (≥4 points), an intermediate (2-3 points), or poor sleep (point 1).

“The gap between the age of the brain and the age of almost six months for each point.” Explains the gap between the age of the brain and the age for about six months for each point. “I had people with a weak sleep, brains that appeared on one year of their actual life.”

To understand how bad sleep can affect the brain, researchers also examined low levels of inflammation in the body. They found that inflammation can explain a little more than ten percent of the relationship between poor sleep and the oldest brain.

“The results we have reached are evidence that poor sleep may contribute to accelerating the aging of the brain and indicates inflammation as one of the basic mechanisms.” “Since sleeping is adjustable, it may be possible to prevent accelerated brain aging and perhaps even the cognitive decline through healthy sleep.”

Several possible explanations

Other potential mechanisms that can explain that the link is the negative effects of the brain removal system in the brain, which is mainly active during sleep, or that poor sleep affects the health of the heart and blood vessels, which in turn can have a negative effect on the brain.

Participants in the UK’s biological bank than the UK’s general population, which may limit the ability to generalize the results. Another registration to study is that the results are self -based.

The study was conducted in cooperation with researchers from the Swedish Faculty of Sports and Health Sciences, Tianjin Medical University and the University of Sichuan in China, among others. It was funded by Al -Zheimer’s Foundation, the Death Corporation, the Swedish Research Council, the Loo Foundation, the Hans Osterman for Medical Research and the Knowledge Corporation. The researchers inform any conflict of interests.