Recent research suggests that the type of sleep you experience each night may influence your risk of over 80 diseases. This study, conducted by researchers from Peking University and Capital Medical University in Beijing, highlights the importance of REM and deep sleep for disease prevention.
Study Findings
The study, published in the journal PLoS Medicine on September 17, examined the sleep patterns of more than 95,000 participants using wrist accelerometers. After observing the participants’ sleep for a week, researchers followed them for a median of 8.9 years to track health outcomes.
Findings revealed that increased REM sleep was linked to a lower risk of 83 diseases such as heart failure, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. Meanwhile, greater deep sleep duration was associated with reduced risks of conditions including type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
Understanding REM and Deep Sleep
REM sleep, characterized by rapid eye movement and vivid dreaming, is crucial for cognitive functions, emotional regulation, brain development, and memory enhancement. Deep sleep involves significantly slowed brain activity and is essential for tissue repair and waste removal in the brain.
Expert Insights
Nour Makarem, co-director of the Chronic Disease Unit at Columbia University, emphasized that poor sleep is linked with various diseases, including cardiometabolic and neurodegenerative conditions. This study underscores the need for sufficient REM and deep sleep.
Experts like Eve Van Cauter from the University of Chicago stress that sleep is a key factor in health and well-being, while Girardin Jean-Louis from the University of Miami highlights the role of sleep architecture in understanding disease risk. They advise caution about inferring specific sleep stages from wearable devices, noting that polysomnography remains the gold standard.
Implications of Sleep on Disease Risk
Sleep influences all aspects of physiology. It aids neuronal recovery and waste removal in the brain. Poor sleep is associated with hormonal imbalances, weight gain, increased stress, and inflammation, which can predispose individuals to diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
Makarem advocates for interventions promoting sleep health alongside diet and physical activity. Van Cauter suggests including sleep education in school curricula to emphasize its importance for health from an early age.
“Education about the importance of sleep for health and well-being needs to start in kindergarten and continue through high school with increasing depth and complexity as the child matures,” Van Cauter said.
The study, titled “Accelerometer-derived real-world sleep stages and risk of incident diseases: A UK Biobank cohort study and phenome-wide association analysis,” indicates the need for further research to explore causal relationships in diverse populations.