Specialists of the National Institute on aging and Johns Hopkins University (USA) found a link between insufficient amount of night sleep and a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease is a serious disease that leads to significant deterioration of quality of life and premature death. About it reported in a press release on EurekAlert!.
Experts analyzed data obtained during long-term studies of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, which since 1958 involved more than three thousand people. In the period 1991-2000 among the volunteers conducted a survey in which they answered a number of questions concerning the quality of their sleep and daytime sleepiness. A subgroup of subjects was performed positron emission tomography with the use of chemical compounds Pittsburgh B (PiB) to identify the beta amyloid plaques that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers have identified 123 volunteers who completed the survey, and 16 years later — imaging with PiB. It turned out that those who complained of daytime drowsiness, the risk of accumulation of amyloid plaques was almost three times higher than that of the other participants.
Scientists believe that these results are explained by the fact that daytime sleepiness is the result of a bad night’s sleep, which in chronic form, promotes the formation of beta-amyloid through a yet unknown mechanism. However, the researchers do not exclude the possibility that the plaques could cause drowsiness.