Not getting enough slow wave sleep can increase your risk of developing dementia as you get older. A 2023 study found that people over the age of 60 are 27 percent more likely to develop dementia if they lose just 1 percent of this deep sleep each year.
slow wave sleep It is the third stage of the human 90 minute sleep cycle and lasts approximately 20 to 40 minutes. This is the most restful stage when brain waves and heart rate slow down, and blood pressure drops.
Deep sleep strengthens your muscles, bones, and immune system, and prepares your brain to absorb more information. A recent study found that people with Alzheimer’s-related changes in their brains performed better on memory tests when they increased their slow-wave sleep.
“Slow-wave sleep, or deep sleep, supports brain aging in many ways, including the fact that sleep promotes the removal of metabolic wastes from the brain, including promoting the removal of proteins that aggregate in Alzheimer’s disease. I know.” said Matthew Pace, a neuroscientist at Monash University in Australia, says:
“However, so far, the role of slow-wave sleep in the development of dementia is unknown. Our findings suggest that loss of slow-wave sleep may be a modifiable risk factor for dementia. ”
Perse and his colleagues tested 346 people from Australia, Canada and the United States. Framingham Heart Research Participants completed two overnight sleep studies between 1995-1998 and 2001-2003, with an average of 5 years between testing periods.
Although this community-based cohort had no records of dementia at the time of the 2001-2003 study and was over 60 years old in 2020, the researchers found that long-term given the opportunity to examine the association between two factors across the spectrum. Two detailed polysomnographic sleep studies and subsequent dementia monitoring of participants were conducted until 2018.
“We used these data to explore how slow-wave sleep changes with age and how changes in the proportion of slow-wave sleep are associated with the risk of late-life dementia up to 17 years later. I checked to see if it was.” said Passe.
Over 17 years of follow-up, 52 cases of dementia were recorded among the participants. Participants’ slow-wave sleep levels recorded in sleep studies were also examined for association with dementia cases.
Overall, the proportion of slow-wave sleep was found to decrease after age 60, with this decrease peaking between ages 75 and 80 and leveling off thereafter.
By comparing participants’ first and second sleep surveys, researchers found that each annual percentage point decrease in slow-wave sleep was associated with a 27% increased risk of developing dementia. I discovered that.
When focusing on Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, that risk increased to 32%.
The Framingham Heart Study will measure multiple health data points over time, including hippocampal volume loss (an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease) and common factors contributing to cardiovascular disease.
Low levels of slow wave sleep can put you at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, taking medications that can affect your sleep, APOE ε4 geneis associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
“We found that genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, but not brain volume, were associated with accelerated decline in slow-wave sleep,” Perce said. said.
Although these are clear links, the authors note that this type of study does not prove that slow-wave sleep deprivation causes dementia, and that dementia-related brain processes may cause sleep deprivation. It is pointed out that there is. Further research is needed to fully understand these factors.
In the meantime, you can certainly prioritize getting enough sleep. This is more than just strengthening your memory. There are also steps you can take to increase your chances of getting more of this important slow wave sleep.
This study JAMA Neurology.
A previous version of this article was published in November 2023.
