These many sleepless nights a week could increase dementia risk by 40%

Scientists already believe that regular poor sleep, especially in the middle of life, could develop their probability of dementia (less than five hours a night was associated with double risk).

And sudden changes for which you sleep can be connected to the condition years before diagnosis.

We are not exactly sure how or why sleep can have this effect on the brain. However, current work has added to the existing associations.

The researchers involved in the study found that people with “chronic insomnia” could be exposed to an increased risk of dementia.

How much bad sleep is needed to increase my risk of dementia?

In this work, “chronic insomnia” was observed for at least three months for at least three nights a week.

Around 2,750 participants with an average age of 70 years were followed for 5.6 years. At the beginning of the study, they were all free of dementia and had 16% chronic insomnia.

After the scientists thought and thought and thinking tests as well as brain scans, those who reported on sleep somnia sleep patterns made a stronger amyloid plaque formation, which is associated with the development of dementia.

Of those who reported chronic insomnia at the beginning of the study, 14% developed insomnia compared to 10% with those who had no sleep problems.

People with insomnia developed 40% more often with a slight cognitive impairment or dementia as humans without insomnia.

The main author of the study, Dr. Diego Z Carvalho, spoke to Medicalnewstoday: “In our models, the influence of insomnia on the risk of a slight cognitive impairment/dementia was higher than two cardiometabolic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes or 3.5 years older than their actual age.

Why could insufficient risk of dementia?

We still can’t say exactly, but Dr. Carvalho suggested that this research gave him some ideas.

“We found that insomnia was not only associated with a reduced sleep not only with Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers such as Amyloid, but also with poorer Kerbrovascular health with greater evidence of small vascular diseases, as the hypertensities of the white substance show,” he said.

This is important because both the structure of amyloid plaque proteins as well as the health of the heart and the health of the vessel are associated with an increased risk of dementia.

The senior researcher also recommended that more doctors include sleep tests in their regular screenings, especially in older patients.

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