The link between excessive napping and Alzheimer's disease
Imagine feeling even groggier after waking up from a midday nap.
For many, this is a daily battle rather than a sporadic event. An unexpected connection between frequent sleeping and Alzheimer's disease has been shown by new research, exposing a concerning loop that may help us better understand this difficult illness.
This finding challenges us to reevaluate our approaches to sleep and cognitive health, emphasizing the significance of our everyday routines, including even something as basic as napping. It also implies that our surroundings and lifestyle decisions may have a bigger impact on brain health than previously thought.
The study
The complex relationship between sleep patterns and Alzheimer's disease is examined in a study conducted by experts at the University of California San Francisco and Harvard. According to their research, taking too many naps may be an early sign of the illness. The desire to nap more frequently appears to be triggered by damage to brain regions that control alertness. Regretfully, these disturbed sleep patterns can accelerate cognitive deterioration, resulting in a harmful feedback loop from which it is difficult to break free.
The study demonstrated the true connection between brain health and sleep. Researchers found that changes in sleeping patterns frequently correlated with early indicators of cognitive problems by concentrating on those who were in the early stages of Alzheimer's. This helps us understand how minor daily routines can occasionally indicate more serious, underlying health issues. It also highlights the need for more comprehensive studies into human health by posing significant queries about how stress, sedentary lifestyles, and chronic sleep deprivation may exacerbate these tendencies.
How Alzheimer's affects sleep
The buildup of proteins like tau and beta-amyloid in the brain is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The buildup of these proteins interferes with our capacity to sleep soundly, in addition to impairing memory and thought processes. Excessive daytime sleepiness and a greater need for naps can result from damage to vital structures like the brainstem and hypothalamus, which are in charge of keeping us attentive. This exacerbates the situation over time by starting a self-reinforcing loop of cognitive deterioration and disturbed sleep.
Remarkably, the study discovered that these proteins had the ability to disrupt our normal sleep-wake cycles. Therefore, even if an individual with Alzheimer's tries to maintain a consistent sleep schedule, their brain may not comply. Oversleeping may become a habit as a result of this fight, suggesting more serious neurological disorders. According to the research, this intricate interaction may also be influenced by variables like food, physical inactivity, and hormonal changes.
Sleep as a warning sign
The study's conclusion that altered napping patterns may indicate the onset of Alzheimer's disease is among its most convincing findings. It may be a sign of early disease-related brain changes if you or someone you know begins to nap more frequently or for longer periods of time, especially as they get older. Understanding this could pave the way for early detection and intervention, enabling medical professionals and caregivers to treat new symptoms before they worsen.
This research highlights how important it is for people to monitor their own and their loved ones' sleep patterns. Even seemingly insignificant changes, such as longer naps or more daytime tiredness, may have bigger implications. Early detection of these changes may be essential for obtaining medical advice and enhancing long-term results. It also emphasizes how important frequent cognitive exams are for anyone with odd sleep patterns.
Ending the cycle
Despite the complexity of the link between excessive napping and Alzheimer's, knowledge of it gives hope for ending the cycle. Overall brain health can be improved by adopting better sleep hygiene practices, such as managing stress, minimizing screen time before bed, and maintaining a regular sleep pattern.
Additionally, researchers stress the significance of evaluating sleep quality rather than quantity. Early detection of disruption may be made possible by tools such as wearable technology that tracks sleep cycles. When combined with heightened public awareness, these tools have the potential to revolutionize the way we approach Alzheimer's and related cognitive illness prevention treatment. Changes in lifestyle , such as frequent exercise, eating foods that are good for the brain, and doing mentally challenging activities may also help to maintain better sleep patterns and reduce the risk of cognitive decline.
In the end, this study serves as a reminder that sleep is essential to our general health and well-being and is not merely a passive aspect of our daily schedule. One of the most important things we can do to safeguard our brain health for years to come is to be aware of how we sleep. Related
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Bill Gates shares ‘next phase of Alzheimer's fight' as he speaks about his father's personal battle
Bill Gates is speaking out about his personal experience with Alzheimer's — and his hope for progress in fighting the disease. In an essay published this week on his blog at the Microsoft co-founder and tech billionaire, 69, reflected on the difficulty of spending another Father's Day without his dad, Bill Gates Sr. Advertisement The elder Gates passed away in 2020 at the age of 94 after battling Alzheimer's. 'It was a brutal experience, watching my brilliant, loving father go downhill and disappear,' Gates wrote in the blog post. Today, motivated by his own experience with the common dementia, Gates — who serves as chair of the Gates Foundation — is committed to working toward a cure for the common dementia, which currently affects more than seven million Americans, or one in nine people over 65. In his blog, Gates expressed optimism about the 'massive progress' being made in the fight against Alzheimer's and other dementias. Advertisement Last year, Gates said he visited Indiana University's School of Medicine in Indianapolis to tour the labs where teams have been researching Alzheimer's biomarkers. 5 Bill Gates (left) is speaking out about his personal experience with Alzheimer's — and his hope for progress in fighting the disease. Brian Ach 'I also got the opportunity to look under the hood of new automated machines that will soon be running diagnostics around the world,' he wrote. 'It's an exciting time in a challenging space.' One of the biggest breakthroughs in Alzheimer's research, according to Gates, is blood-based diagnostic tests, which detect the ratio of amyloid plaques in the brain. (Amyloid plaques, clumps of protein that accumulate in the brain, are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's.) Advertisement 'I'm optimistic that these tests will be a game-changer,' Gates wrote. 5 The elder Gates passed away in 2020 at the age of 94 after battling Alzheimer's. Bloomberg via Getty Images Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first blood-based test for patients 55 years and older, as Fox News Digital reported at the time. Traditionally, Gates noted, the primary path to Alzheimer's diagnosis was either a PET scan (medical imaging) or spinal tap (lumbar puncture), which were usually only performed when symptoms emerged. Advertisement The hope is that blood-based tests could do a better job of catching the disease early, decline begins. 5 Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first blood-based test for patients 55 years and older, as Fox News Digital reported at the time. – 'We now know that the disease begins 15 to 20 years before you start to see any signs,' Gates wrote. 'A simple, accurate and easy-to-run blood test might one day make routine screening possible, identifying patients long before they experience cognitive decline,' he stated. Gates said he is often asked, 'What is the point of getting diagnosed if I can't do anything about it?' Start and end your day informed with our newsletters Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today's top stories Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters To that end, he expressed his optimism for the future of Alzheimer's treatments, noting that two drugs — Lecanemab (Leqembi) and Donanemab (Kisunla) — have gained FDA approval. 'Both have proven to modestly slow down the progression of the disease, but what I'm really excited about is their potential when paired with an early diagnostic,' Gates noted. Advertisement He said he is also hopeful that the blood tests will help speed up the process of enrolling patients in clinical trials for new Alzheimer's drugs. 5 The hope is that blood-based tests could do a better job of catching the disease early, decline begins. Monkey Business – To accomplish this, Gates is calling for increased funding for research, which often comes from federal grants. 'This is the moment to spend more money on research, not less,' he wrote, also stating that 'the quest to stop Alzheimer's has never had more momentum.' Advertisement 'There is still a huge amount of work to be done — like deepening our understanding of the disease's pathology and developing even better diagnostics,' Gates went on. 5 Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, his wife Melinda, far left, his father Bill Gates Sr., and his step-mother Mimi Gates pose for a photo in 2007. AP Gates pointed out that when his father had Alzheimer's, it was considered a 'death sentence,' but that is starting to change. Advertisement 'I am blown away by how much we have learned about Alzheimer's over the last couple of years,' he wrote. 'I cannot help but be filled with a sense of hope when I think of all the progress being made on Alzheimer's, even with so many challenges happening around the world. We are closer than ever before to a world where no one has to watch someone they love suffer from this awful disease.'
CNBC
3 hours ago
- CNBC
Harvard study of nearly 50,000 women over 30 years finds coffee drinking linked to healthy aging, longevity: It seems to offer 'protective benefits'
Coffee, and whether or not it's good for you, has been a research focus for decades. A regular cup or two has been linked to better heart health, a longer life, and most recently, a study led by a Harvard researcher, Dr. Sara Mahdavi found that drinking coffee may even aid healthy aging in women. "The findings suggest that caffeinated coffee—not tea or decaf—may uniquely support aging trajectories that preserve both mental and physical function," said Mahdavi, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The paper, which was presented at the American Society of Nutrition's annual meeting, has not yet been published or peer-reviewed. But the findings are robust. Researchers followed 47,513 women over the course of decades, starting in 1984, and analyzed their health data and coffee-drinking habits. By 2016, only 3,706 participants were considered healthy agers. Factors that the researchers considered to define healthy aging were: The researchers considered additional lifestyle factors like smoking, exercise frequency and diet, and adjusted for their contribution to health outcomes. Participants were also asked to share how often they drank coffee, tea and either Coca-Cola or Pepsi, which can all be sources of caffeine. Women who had at least one cup of coffee daily were more likely to be among the healthy agers, the study found. Of the healthy agers, each extra cup of coffee they had each day was associated with a 2% to 5% increased chance of aging well, peaking at about five small cups a day. Drinking tea or decaffeinated coffee didn't have a clear connection to healthy aging in the study, and drinking cola drastically lowered chances of positive health outcomes. How much coffee per day leads to healthy aging is debatable. Mahdavi says drinking up to seven small cups of coffee daily was associated with healthy aging in the study, but whether or not that amount is healthy can shift depending on the person. Other recent studies have pointed to the potential health benefits of drinking coffee. A recent study of nearly 50,000 U.S. adults published this May found that having one to three cups of coffee a day could lower a person's chances of dying by around 15% within the following nine to 11 years, in comparison to those who didn't consume the drink. "Moderate coffee intake may offer some protective benefits when combined with other healthy behaviors such as regular exercise, a healthy diet and avoiding smoking," Mahdavi said in a press release. "While this study adds to prior evidence suggesting coffee intake may be linked with healthy aging, the benefits from coffee are relatively modest compared to the impact of overall healthy lifestyle habits and warrant further investigation."
Newsweek
3 hours ago
- Newsweek
More Seniors Are Using Drugs—Here's Why It Matters
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. For decades, Americans worried about their kids getting high. Now, alarming new data suggest they should be just as worried about their parents and grandparents—and demanding that their legislators and policymakers take immediate action to stop the rising tide of marijuana use among seniors. A study out this month from JAMA Internal Medicine shows an enormous jump in the rate of past-month pot use among Americans 65 years and older; from 2021 to 2023 it increased nearly 46 percent. This is not some statistical fluke. The study looked at the drug-use habits of almost 16,000 older adults nationwide, across gender, race, and income and educational levels. And the data show sharp increases across almost all demographics. In other words, it doesn't seem to matter much who these seniors are. They're using more weed. Yes, the news has rightly generated some media ripples. But the response has so far been muted in comparison with the magnitude of the problem. Where are the calls for senior-focused prevention? This is no different, after all, from a near-50 percent jump in teen use over two years. The fact that these are in general older people doesn't make the finding any less worrying. The rest of the bad-news drumbeat around marijuana and public health shows why increased use among older people should set major alarms ringing. A May study led by researchers at the University of California San Francisco showed that marijuana is terrible for your heart (whether you smoke it or eat it). Research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found daily marijuana users had a 42 percent increased risk of stroke and a 25 percent increased risk of heart attacks—even after adjusting for other factors including tobacco use. Adults with Cannabis Use Disorder are 60 percent more likely to experience heart failure, strokes, or heart attacks than adults who do not use marijuana. Plus, daily users are more at risk for certain cancers, including head, neck, and laryngeal cancers. How many of the 65-plus set are aware of these risks? They should be common knowledge among all age groups, but especially older people. Available data suggest that having reached your golden years doesn't in any way protect you from the horrible risks of using marijuana. In Ontario, hospital admissions and emergency room visits related to marijuana jumped 26-fold among people 65 and older between 2008 and 2021; between 2005 and 2019, the rate of marijuana-related emergency-room visits in California for that group rose almost 19-fold. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MAY 24: In this photo illustration, marijuana joints and buds, also known as 'flower', are viewed on May 24, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MAY 24: In this photo illustration, marijuana joints and buds, also known as 'flower', are viewed on May 24, 2024 in Los Angeles, disturbingly, the Ontario study also showed that anyone going to the hospital for marijuana suffers a 72 percent higher risk of dementia than the general population. As more and more data emerge, it's becoming clearer that seniors represent an at-risk population for this drug, just as much as kids do. One of the truly disturbing data points from the JAMA study is that among older adults with post-college education, past-month use increased almost 70 percent. For adults earning more than $75,000 annually, it more than doubled. If the most educated and affluent segments of the most experienced and knowledgeable population have fallen for propaganda around the drug, everybody interested in restoring public health really has their work cut out for them. So what should be the response? First up is a prevention campaign aimed at older people. That may sound counterintuitive, and it would require different messaging than the powerful teen-targeted federal communications push on the issue from the '90s. An emphasis on the damage the drug does to heart health makes sense as a touchpoint. Older people have been hearing about heart health from their doctors for years, and data show that smoking weed and consuming edibles can have catastrophic cardiovascular effects. The findings connecting marijuana use to increased rates of dementia in the general population will hit hard with seniors, too. Doctors need to be raising this information with their older patients at least at every checkup. People should spread the news to their own parents (in as gentle a way as possible). Today's weed isn't your grandparents' weed, after all. There also needs to be more research into the specific risks marijuana poses to those aged 65 and over, given that data suggest its general risks grow worse with age. People could be tempted to laugh off the idea of stopping silver-haired grannies from getting high. But this is a deadly serious issue. Marijuana is dangerous, no matter your age. It's time America woke up to that fact and started talking about it—even if it means some hard conversations with mom and dad at your Fourth of July BBQ. Dr. Kevin Sabet is the president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
