Poor sleep could make your brain age faster, study finds
The alarming health effects a lack of sleep has on your brain
- Research from the Karolinska Institutet indicates that poor sleep accelerates brain ageing, making brains appear significantly older than their actual age.
- The study analysed MRI scans and sleep behaviour of over 27,000 UK adults aged 40 to 70, using machine learning to determine brain age.
- Participants with poor sleep had brains that appeared, on average, one year older than their chronological age, with a six-month increase for every point decrease in healthy sleep score.
- Increased inflammation was identified as a key contributing factor, accounting for 10 per cent of the connection between poor sleep and accelerated brain ageing.
- Researchers suggest that since sleep is modifiable, improving sleep habits could potentially prevent accelerated brain ageing and cognitive decline