Lack of sleep can lead to long-term memory loss

Sleepless nights not only affect your memory the next day, but also increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers believe that lack of sleep causes a protein that causes memory loss to build up in the brain.

High levels of this beta-amyloid protein disrupt sleep, creating a toxic process that results in Alzheimer's disease.

The discovery could offer hope for treating dementia in older adults and those with symptoms of the disease, researchers say.

Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia affect more than 800,000 people worldwide, potentially reaching 44 million by 2050 as the world's population ages.

With little effect of drugs and failures in treating the disease, doctors say that changing diet and lifestyle is the best way to prevent the disease.

The latest study by California scientists looked at the relationship between beta amyloid protein, sleep quality, and memory in men and women aged 60 to 80. They were tested for beta amyloid in their brains, asked 120 memory-challenging questions, and tested again after eight hours of sleep.

People with the highest levels of beta amyloid in their brains had the lowest quality sleep, lacking the deep sleep needed to restore memory storage. These people also performed the worst on memory tests.

Previous studies have shown that deep sleep clears beta amyloid from the brain, and scientists believe that sleep deprivation creates a toxic cycle that makes memory worse.

The more beta amyloid you have in certain parts of your brain, the less deep sleep you get, and the worse your memory is as a result. Plus, the less deep sleep you get, the harder it is to clear this bad protein.

If you improve your sleep, you can break the toxic cycle that causes disease.

“We need to study larger groups to see more clearly how sleep deprivation can lead to memory problems and possibly develop treatments,” said Dr Ian Le Guillou, who is leading the Alzheimer’s research team.

According to Gia dinh.net