Poor sleep in your 40s may accelerate brain aging: new study

What a nightmare!

Poor sleep in your 40s can age your brain faster – and you may feel the effects in your late 50s, a new study finds.

“Our findings highlight the importance of addressing sleep problems earlier in life to maintain brain health, including maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, exercising, avoiding caffeine and alcohol before bed, and using techniques of relaxation,” said study author Dr. Kristine Yaffe from UC. San Francisco.

Nearly 600 adults in their 40s completed a sleep questionnaire at the start of the study and five years later.

Questions included: “Do you usually have trouble sleeping?” “Do you usually wake up several times during the night?” and “Do you usually wake up very early?”

The researchers noted whether participants experienced short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, trouble falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, early morning awakening, or daytime sleepiness. Experts generally recommend seven to nine hours of shuteye a night.

Participants were divided into three groups based on their sleep characteristics. Those in the low group (about 70%) had none or one of the six characteristics. Participants in the middle group (22%) had two or three, and those in the high group (8%) had four to six.

Fifteen years after the study began, the participants underwent skull scans that helped the researchers calculate the age of their brains.

After accounting for age, sex, high blood pressure, diabetes and other factors, the researchers determined that the brains of the middle group were on average 1.6 years older than the brains of the low group. Those in the high group had an average brain age 2.6 years older.

Of the six sleep habits, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling and staying asleep, and waking up early in the morning were associated with greater brain age, especially when people experienced these problems for at least five years .

The findings were published Wednesday in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The researchers emphasized that their study, which was funded by the National Institute on Aging, does not prove that poor sleep accelerates brain aging — it only shows a link between the two.

A limitation of the research is that participants reported their sleep problems and may not have characterized them accurately.

“Future research should focus on finding new ways to improve sleep quality and investigating the long-term impact of sleep on brain health in young adults,” Yaffe said.

Also Wednesday in Neurology, Yale researchers reported that middle-aged people with uncontrolled blood pressure, blood sugar or cholesterol who don’t exercise, eat healthily or sleep well face a higher risk of stroke, dementia or depression later in life.

“Our study found that making these healthy lifestyle choices in midlife can have significant impacts on brain health later in life,” said study author Dr. Santiago Clocchiatti-Tuozzo.