translated from Spanish: Bad sleep might affect the development of Alzheimer’s disease

sleep little and badly it could be related to Alzheimer’s disease during old age since it increases the amounts of two proteins whose accumulation is related to the development of the disease: l the beta amyloid and tau protein. The study, which echoes of several previous works, was published in the magazine Science.Los authors of the work samples of cerebro-spinal fluid of eight adults taken in two different situations: first, after a night of normal sleep, and then after 36 hours without sleep. In the second case, there was an increase of more than 50 per cent in the detected amounts of tau. A similar experiment carried out with mice showed that those who stretched well had half of tau than those who did not.  Several previous studies had already raised the existence of a strong correlation between Alzheimer’s and the amount of protein tau and beta amyloid detected in the nervous system. This study, in particular, shows how it affects the mode in which we slept in this accumulation. In addition to the consolidation of memory, one of the functions of sleep is, as it is known, ‘clean up’ the brain’s metabolic waste generated during daily activity, which would not be met adequately in patients with insomnia. In addition, the more active are neurons, bigger tau and beta amyloid production. Because being awake requires, it is believed, increased brain activity that being asleep, is reasonable to expect an increase in the amount of these proteins in those who do not achieve adequate sleep. Alzheimer’s is a neurodegenerative disease in which neurons massively stop working, lose communication with each other and die. The first brain in affected areas are those associated with memory (hippocampus, for example): hence the first visible symptom is the inability to remember. Although there are still many things to study, David Holtzman, one of the co-authors of the work, held that “treating sleep disorders during maturity and get appropriate sleep levels could reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease”. In this note:

Original source in Spanish