Research finds quality sleep key to helping parry dementia
LOS ANGELES: An extra five to 10 minutes of deep sleep at night may help prevent dementia, but the key is establishing good sleep habits early in life.
A Melbourne study has found that maintaining quality sleep with ageing could help prevent the condition that affects the cognitive function of 400,000 Australians.
It found a loss of just 1 per cent of deep sleep, also called slow wave sleep (SWS), a year may increase the risk of dementia by a staggering 27 per cent in people aged over 60.This is the first time research has linked changes in the composition of sleep to the risk of getting dementia.“This is important because now that we have this knowledge we can encourage more research in this area,” lead author Matthew Pase said.
“These findings suggest SWS loss may be a modifiable dementia risk factor.”
SWS is the deepest stage of sleep. It accounts for 10 to 20 per cent of a total night’s sleep and is important, experts say, and this is when memory and learning are consolidated.
Researchers say it also plays a role in clearing the brain of metabolic waste that builds up during the day.This includes the waste that causes Alzheimer’s disease.
Associate Professor Pase is a dementia researcher from the Monash School of Psychological Sciences and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Melbourne.
His research was published in the journal JAMA Neurology on Tuesday and involved more than 340 people from the Framingham Heart Study based in Massachusetts.
This renowned study started in 1948 and now includes the children and grandchildren of the original participants, allowing researchers to track health information over three generations.
Professor Pase said his research concluded that the greater the decline of SWS, the higher the risk of dementia.
“The solution to improving SWS is not as simple as taking a sleeping tablet,” he said, adding it was more likely to entail digital devices to measure aspects of sleep and potentially acoustic stimulation.
“Existing sleep-wearable devices can tell you how long you have been asleep, but they are not very good yet at breaking down sleep architecture.”
Digital devices needed to be able to track stages of sleep, which start with light sleep and move through the deeper stages that include REM sleep, the stage typically associated with dreaming, and SWS, he said.
Good sleep hygiene was also critical, according to Professor Pase.
This included going to sleep at the right time, avoiding bright lights and overstimulation before sleep along with sleeping in a cool and comfortable environment.
“Not enough people make sleep a priority,” he said. “Many wear it almost as a badge of honour to say they only need four hours a night, but these are bad sleeping habits.
“The results from this study suggest that just as people take care of their physical health and prioritise exercise and diet, people should prioritise getting adequate sleep.
“In terms of dementia, although it is a condition of old age, a lot of the diseases that cause dementia can start in the brain 10 or 20 years before someone is diagnosed.”