This surprising step could cut your risk of dementia
Research into dementia is revealing new findings all the time, and many of them are much simpler fixes than expected. If ever you needed another reason to stay in bed for a few extra minutes, new research has shown that a lie-in might reduce your risk of developing dementia.
Researchers at the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University in Suzhou, China followed 7,683 people as part of a long-term health study to see if sleep patterns had any effect on how people age.
Throughout the study, participants kept sleep diaries and had regular blood tests for the researchers to calculate their biological age compared to their actual age.
When the researchers looked at the sleeping patterns and compared them to the biological ages from the blood test they found that an extra hour or two at the weekend reduced the risk of premature aging by 34%.
We know that getting a good night's sleep is incredibly important for our health, with mounting evidence that good quality sleep reduces all sorts of risks for conditions like heart disease, depression and even diabetes.
But what medical professionals still don't agree on is how; how does sleep act as a sort of reset for our bodies?
One suggestion is that disrupted sleep is thought to lead to the release of unstable and harmful molecules which can damage cell DNA and speed-up aging.
Another suggestion is that high quality sleep may lower inflammation in the body – which has been increasingly been linked to health problems such as dementia. A recent study by the University of Cambridge supported this link further, finding that anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen could also be linked to a reduced risk of the disease.
Previous thinking suggested that 'catch-up' sleep for those already sleep deprived wouldn't make a difference to health outcomes but the findings from China suggest this may not be the case and there is hope for us restless sleepers after all.
A study in the journal Sleep and Breathing last autumn found that those who had caught up on sleep after missing their recommended 8 hours throughout the week were more than 70% less likely to develop dementia.
The results showed that people who had had those extra few hours lying in on the weekend were far less likely to suffer from deteriorating cognitive function, which is an early sign of dementia.
On the whole, doctors agree it is still optimal to get 7 to 9 hours of good quality sleep per night but with hectic work schedules, school-runs and general life getting in the way that weekend 'catch-up' could make all the difference.
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