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Nearly all of us have experienced a sleepless night or two, combined with the fuzzy head and insufficient concentration the next day. New information shows, however, that those restless nights, compounded by sleep disorders such as osa and insomnia, may be raising your long-term risk of developing dementia, too.
The research, released now by physicians at the University of California at Bay area, studied the sleep disturbances of 200,000 military veterans ages 55 and older, examining their medical records from an eight-year period. Based on the findings, after comprising gender, income, education and health, the veterans who had a diagnosis of a sleep problem were built with a 30 percent greater risk of dementia compared to those without lack of.
“This is the first investigation into the link between sleep disturbance and dementia in a large cohort of older, mostly male veterans,” says Dr. Kristine Yaffe, one of the authors of the study. “Further research is needed to clarify the function of sleep disturbance as whether risk factor for, or an early characteristic of, dementia among veterans, and in other populations, too.”
These findings, reported at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Copenhagen, continue the effort to find the causes for dementia. The speed of dementia has been declining in recent years-by as much as 25 percent for seniors-due to a healthier senior population, even though there is still no cure.
According to the researchers, the findings support previous research in sleep and it is importance to memory and mental health.
“It is thought that sleep are likely involved in changes in the mind related to aging and dementia, and sleep abnormalities may affect us in more ways than we fully understand,” says Dr. Raina Gupta, neurologist at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago. “This is further recognition of the need for sleep to the human body and mind. Sleep abnormalities are also found to be risk factors for hypertension, diabetes, stroke and cardiac arrest.”
Dr. Gupta agrees that more scientific studies are needed in the overall population to make certain these findings can be widely applied. “But it is really an important initial step.”
She encourages anyone who may be experiencing alterations in memory to speak with their physician to judge the need for a neurologic or sleep medicine evaluation.
