This shouldn’t be new; but it has been making major headlines on the net. Now, more than ever, research points to the fact that burning the midnight oil can fry your brain cells.
A Sleep-Deprived Australia
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, “Australia is a sleep-deprived nation.” ABC Capricornia reports on a huge study involving over 13,000 respondents all answering to a survey on insomnia. An astonishing 96% of participants have woken, unrefreshed by sleep. Of this number, about 40% have fallen asleep at work. In my book, this is epidemic!
Consider the implications on a macro level. These statistics should be alarming as sleep deprivation does have its costs. As chronic loss of sleep affects each person’s performance, safety, and quality of life, the impact of a sleep-deprived population will tell on a nation’s economy, health, and psyche. I’m not some economist though to write about the impact of sleep loss on such a grand scale. I’m interested in letting you know what sleep loss can do to you, personally. It’s still very alarming.
A Sleep Loss Consequence: Brain Cell Damage
The furor on the net was born out of some new findings on sleep deprivation. There is a high probability for sleep loss to be linked to brain cell death. BBC News Health reports that studies done on mice subjected to prolonged sleep deprivation showed a 25% brain cell damage. The mice were only given four to five hours of sleep a day, over a period of just three days. After three days, their locus coeruleus neurons or LCs simply degenerated.
The study was done to imitate the schedules of modern living---late nights at the office, changing shifts, and the like. Damage to the LCs is deemed irreversible, according to the Journal of Neuroscience which published the findings. The bad news here is that recovery sleep cannot reverse the damage.
Apparently, sleep maintains a metabolic balance in the brain. Without it, the mitochondria in brain cells get stressed sufficiently to deteriorate and die. But, here’s a silver lining. A protein called SirT3 (Sirtuin Type 3) may be the answer to LC damage as this had been discovered to protect LCs from the devastating effects of sleep loss. Until this protection can be mass produced though, we are all still in danger of losing some brain cells forever by prolonged wakefulness.
Your memory cells are also susceptible to sleep deprivation. The journal on Neurobiology of Aging states that those with chronic sleep issues have greater chances of developing Alzheimer’s over those who frequently have a good night’s rest.
For this conclusion, tests were done on mice in which the animals’ circadian rhythms were disrupted with only four hours of darkness for eight weeks. Researchers found that the animals exhibited poor memory and the inability to learn new things. Their brains failed to formed new synapses. Other cognitive functions were also impaired. Sleep deprivation therefore ramps up the risk of Alzheimer’s disease or hastens its progress. How does this happen? Another popular journal, “Science,” published that sleep flushes out toxins from our brains, including those that contribute to the disease. Chronic wakefulness simply gives the toxins more chances to build up and wreak their havoc. Women are doubly more susceptible to Alzheimer’s than men are; so, if you are a woman over the age of 60, make your sleep a paramount importance.
Although all these findings have been through lab mice testing, they are quite significant as humans and mice share a strikingly similar physiology, anatomy, and genetics. In fact, 95% of the mouse genome is the same as our own. It wouldn’t be wise to pooh-pooh these discoveries as inapplicable to us. Instead, it would be safer to take heed until the results are proven otherwise.
Although all these findings have been through lab mice testing, they are quite significant as humans and mice share a strikingly similar physiology, anatomy, and genetics. In fact, 95% of the mouse genome is the same as our own. It wouldn’t be wise to pooh-pooh these discoveries as inapplicable to us. Instead, it would be safer to take heed until the results are proven otherwise.
Other Consequences of Sleep Loss
Sleep loss also affects cells of other parts of our bodies. Findings from the Medical College of Wisconsin also point to chronic wakefulness as a cause of cell damage to the liver, lungs, and small intestine. Unlike the brain though, these organs have better chances to survive the ravages of sleep loss because recovery sleep can heal cell damage to these organs. Yet, we all can see how sleep deprivation can work so much damage at the cellular level.
At a more visible level, lack of sleep can give you age lines, an expanding waist, and a moodier disposition. There are other surprising effects of chronic sleep deprivation, you may not know.
Sleep is so integral to our well-being that we need it not just to function but to live healthy, long lives. When you find yourself at your bedtime, settling down to read just one more chapter or to watch just one more show on the telly, think of your disrupted circadian rhythm and your dying cells. Is it really worth those fleeting pleasures?
