Is lack of sleep linked to Alzheimer’s disease? According to an American study published Wednesday, the answer is yes. Researchers have linked the loss of a night’s sleep to Tau proteins in the brain, which are responsible for Alzheimer’s disease. According to them, these proteins are spread in greater numbers in the brain in people who sleep little or not at all overnight.
To do this, the scientists carried out a study on 15 young healthy men. Each participant was observed on two different occasions: during a “normal” night’s sleep and during a “sleep loss during the night”, in random order. They then found that the levels of Tau protein in the brain were higher during a night with sleep loss than during a “normal” night.
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“Our exploratory study shows that even in young healthy individuals, the lack of a night’s sleep increases the level of the Tau protein, which suggests that over time, such deprivation could have harmful effects”, explains the neurologist and author of the study published in Neurology Jonathan Cederanaes, in comments reported by CNN.
The Tau protein is indeed responsible for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The protein, which is found inside neurons, “becomes abnormal in Alzheimer’s patients and causes neurons to die,” recently said the executive director of the Alzheimer Foundation at LCI. But this protein, which develops naturally in the brain, is eliminated during sleep time in healthy people, as a form of “cleansing”. Little or no sleep therefore prevents the brain from getting rid of it.
In recent days, a study has revealed that the level of the Tau protein could predict the speed of the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in patients.
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