by We all know that sleep is important, but it takes so much time. With responsibilities and distractions that still appear from our awake life, the urge to skimp asleep can be powerful.
As a new study suggests, even a single night of lack of sleep can cause a significant revolution in the immune system, which may contribute to the development of disorders such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
The dangers of chronic lack of sleep are well known, from mood changes and cognitive impairment to health problems such as heart attacks or strokes.
There is abundant evidence that poor sleep links to these and other ailments, and abundant evidence that suggests that such health problems are often powered by chronic inflammation, the authors of the new study point out.
However, there is less evidence about the specific mechanisms involved: how exactly can sleep lack of systemic inflammation affected by the health of people?
For the new study, researchers from the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait tried to understand the influence of lack of sleep on circulating immune cells, such as monocytes, and the association with systemic inflammation.
Monocytes are large leukocytes, or white blood cells, which play an important role in the congenital immune system, which offers the first line of defense of the body against intruders. There are three subsets of monocytes in people: classic, non-classical and intermediary.
Non-classical monocytes patrol for pathogens in vasculature and extravascular tissues, explains the authors of the study, using inflammatory signals to help them regulate the body’s immune response.
The researchers recruited 276 healthy Kuwaitse adults with varying Body Mass Indices (BMIs), of whom 237 completed the study. They analyzed the sleep patterns of the test subjects and checked their blood at levels of different monocytes subsets and inflammatory markers.
Obese participants had a considerably lower sleep quality than slimmer participants, according to the study, along with higher chronic low-grade inflammation. They also had more non-classical monocytes, which correlated with a lower sleep quality and increased pro-inflammatory markers.
In another part of the examination, five healthy, poor adults submitted blood samples for a period of a lack of sleep. These were compared with control of blood samples that were taken after the participants had had refreshing sleep for a few days.
Even only a lack of sleep was apparently changed the monocyte profiles in Lean participants to resemble those of obese participants, a condition that the researchers remarks that it promotes chronic inflammation.
The answer may seem obvious – just get more sleep – but it is rarely so simple in real life. Modern civilization works together to stop us, claims that main author Fatema Al-Rashed, a researcher at the Dasman Diabetes Institute.
“Our findings underline a growing challenge for public health. Improvements in technology, long-term screen time and the shifting of social standards are always disturbing for regular sleeping hours,” says Al-Rashed.
“This disturbance of sleep has in -depth consequences for immune health and overall well -being.”
Future research should continue this research of the connections between lack of sleep and immune changes, write al-Rashed and her colleagues.
They also hope to learn whether interventions can help reduce this effect, such as structured sleep therapies or guidelines for limiting the use of technology.
“In the long term we strive for this study to stimulate policy and strategies that recognize the crucial role of sleep in public health,” says Al-Rashed.
“We propose workplace reforms and educational campaigns that promote better sleep practices, in particular for population with sleep disturbance due to technological and professional needs.
“Ultimately, this can help to reduce the burden of inflammatory diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases,” she says.
The study was published in The Journal of Immunology.
