The brain is 3 years older for 40-year-olds who sleep poorly
A good sleep after the age of 40 is a guarantee against brain aging: a study published in "Neurology" reveals that with poor sleep quality, it affects the aging of the brain by 3 years in middle age.
In practice, middle-aged adults with poor sleep quality, who for example have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, show a reduction in brain volume compared to their peers.
"Our study, which used brain scans to determine the age of the participants' brains, suggests that poor sleep quality is associated with almost three years of additional brain aging by middle age," said researchers from the University of California, San Francisco.
The study included 589 people with an average age of 40 years at the start of the study. Participants completed sleep questionnaires both at the start of the study and five years later. Brain scans were taken 15 years after the study began.
The researchers recorded several characteristics of sleep problems for each participant: short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling asleep, early morning awakenings, and daytime sleepiness.
The researchers analyzed the brain scans of the participants and used artificial intelligence to determine the age of the brain for each of them.