A new study has said that sleep disturbances and longer sleep duration are associated with increases in markers of inflammation. The study was conducted by a team of researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles, or UCLA, in the US. Insufficient sleep is considered a public health epidemic by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The paper was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
Speaking about this, the researchers said, Together with diet and physical activity, sleep health represents a third component in the promotion of health-span. Common sleep disturbances, such as insomnia, have been associated with increased risk of inflammatory disease and mortality. Sleep disturbance or insomnia should be regarded as behavioural risk factors for inflammation, similar to the adverse effects of high fat diet or sedentary behaviour.
A number of substances including C-reactive protein, or CRP, and interleukin-6, or IL-6. Increase in volume in the blood stream as a result of inflammation. These, in turn, result in adverse health conditions including cardiovascular events, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes.
Findings of the study showed that sleep disturbance poor sleep quality or complaints of insomnia, and long sleep duration which is more than 8 hours were associated with increased levels of CRP and IL-6. Shorter sleep duration was associated with increased levels of CRP.
Say experts, It is important to highlight both too much and too little sleep appears to be associated with inflammation, a process that contributes to depression as well as many medical illnesses.
For the study, the team conducted a meta-analysis of 72 different articles for associations between sleep and inflammatory markers, which included over 50,000 participants from population-based and clinical studies. The researchers said that, Treatments targeting sleep behaviour could be a strategy for reversing the inflammation and reducing risk of inflammatory illnesses,