There's a fascinating new study on the causes of alzheimer's that finds a well known indicator of Alzheimer's disease, quantities of amyloid beta, increase throughout the day and go down at night in a pattern that appears to echo our natural sleep/wake cycle.
Though it's early days yet, this finding suggests a relationship between a lack of sleep and the risk of developing this most dreaded of brain destroying diseases, Alzheimer's.
The study split participants in three groups: 1) aged 60+ who showed a positive result when tested for amyloid beta plaques found in the brain; 2) age 60+ who testing showed did not have any amyloid beta plaques; and 3) healthy subjects aged 18 to 60.
In the first group, the amyloid beta levels stayed just about constant, while in the remaining two groups; the levels increased and reduced in waves.
In healthy adults amyloid beta levels reached their lowest level about 6 hours into the sleep cycle, and their highest level six hours after wakefulness.
Peaks in sleep and feeling awake consistently happened just before the same move by amyloid beta levels, while normal daily activities had no impact on the changes.
This was most prevalent for young, healthy subjects, and not so much in older people who naturally sleep less and experience fewer periods of deep sleep.
Understand too that disruptions to our normal sleep/wake cycles typically get more pronounced as we age.
The risk of Alzheimer's also goes up as we add more candles to the birthday cake.
The researchers believe the protection of enough quality, restful sleep comes from the brain's reduced activity during this time, allowing the body to flush amyloid beta proteins out via the spinal fluid.
Interesting that amyloid beta levels seen in older subjects who have Alzheimer's are nearly constant, suggesting a potential relationship between lack of good, restorative sleep and risk of getting Alzheimer's.
It's long been accepted that sleep deprivation hurts brain functioning, just as much as alcohol intoxication.
It's only recently been discovered that prolonged disruption/deprivation of sleep can play a rather important role in the pathological processes involved in disease.
The connection between sleep and Alzheimer's hasn't been confirmed in people yet, but the finding could still be rather important to our overall understanding of the disease.
Today there are no medications that can slow the progression of Alzheimer's, but there are 4 FDA approved drugs to treat the symptoms.
They help patients hold onto thinking, memory and speaking skills and might also help with some of the behavior and personality changes that come with this condition.
At best they are effective for a few months to perhaps several years.
The researchers on this project admit that far more work is needed in order to understand how interrupted sleeping patterns might disrupt the normal increase and decrease of amyloid beta markers in the spine.
While we're still speculating, it's intriguing to think that better sleep might help in reducing Alzheimer's risk and that getting it is an easy way to eliminate one of the possible causes of alzheimer's.
Though it's early days yet, this finding suggests a relationship between a lack of sleep and the risk of developing this most dreaded of brain destroying diseases, Alzheimer's.
The study split participants in three groups: 1) aged 60+ who showed a positive result when tested for amyloid beta plaques found in the brain; 2) age 60+ who testing showed did not have any amyloid beta plaques; and 3) healthy subjects aged 18 to 60.
In the first group, the amyloid beta levels stayed just about constant, while in the remaining two groups; the levels increased and reduced in waves.
In healthy adults amyloid beta levels reached their lowest level about 6 hours into the sleep cycle, and their highest level six hours after wakefulness.
Peaks in sleep and feeling awake consistently happened just before the same move by amyloid beta levels, while normal daily activities had no impact on the changes.
This was most prevalent for young, healthy subjects, and not so much in older people who naturally sleep less and experience fewer periods of deep sleep.
Understand too that disruptions to our normal sleep/wake cycles typically get more pronounced as we age.
The risk of Alzheimer's also goes up as we add more candles to the birthday cake.
The researchers believe the protection of enough quality, restful sleep comes from the brain's reduced activity during this time, allowing the body to flush amyloid beta proteins out via the spinal fluid.
Interesting that amyloid beta levels seen in older subjects who have Alzheimer's are nearly constant, suggesting a potential relationship between lack of good, restorative sleep and risk of getting Alzheimer's.
It's long been accepted that sleep deprivation hurts brain functioning, just as much as alcohol intoxication.
It's only recently been discovered that prolonged disruption/deprivation of sleep can play a rather important role in the pathological processes involved in disease.
The connection between sleep and Alzheimer's hasn't been confirmed in people yet, but the finding could still be rather important to our overall understanding of the disease.
Today there are no medications that can slow the progression of Alzheimer's, but there are 4 FDA approved drugs to treat the symptoms.
They help patients hold onto thinking, memory and speaking skills and might also help with some of the behavior and personality changes that come with this condition.
At best they are effective for a few months to perhaps several years.
The researchers on this project admit that far more work is needed in order to understand how interrupted sleeping patterns might disrupt the normal increase and decrease of amyloid beta markers in the spine.
While we're still speculating, it's intriguing to think that better sleep might help in reducing Alzheimer's risk and that getting it is an easy way to eliminate one of the possible causes of alzheimer's.
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