According to the Los Angeles Times, scientists found new information about how not enough sleep can affect your genes and possibly cause disease. Twenty-sex volunteers were subjected to undergo seven nights of disrupted sleep and some all-nighters. After the seven days went by the researchers noted the various amount of ways hundreds of genes were affected because of the lack of sleep. Genes that are damage encouraging like some in stress reaction were amplified, while other genes that are nurturing and renew the cells and tissues were not able to do so. For many years a lot of scientists focused on how sleep affected the brain and not genes until now. Epidemiologists realized that people who lacked sleep in general seemed to have a very high rate of diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and other illnesses, while biologists found out that the same people make more stress hormones and appetite stimulating hormones. The original volunteers for the seven day study were asked to complete two 12day long evaluations. From the evaluations the researchers noted that 8.5 hours of sleep is a sufficient amount of sleep. Also, researchers kept the subjects awake for 39-41 hours and took a total of ten samples of blood throughout that amount of time. When they analyzed the blood they looked at the changes in RNA and found that losing sleep disrupts the genes’ circadian clock and turns some genes on and off. A researcher, not a part of the research, discussed that simple blood test can help doctors find out what time of day it is in someone’s body to help doctors with sleep deprived patients. The C.D.C., claims that 30% of adults in the U.S. may be endorsing damage to their body by getting six or less hours of sleep per night.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/256912.php
I am a psych major, and I have been learning how sleep effects everything from cognition to memory, but reading this has opened up eyes even more to how important this fundamental part of life is! Its actually crazy how something as simple as sleep can effect your everyday life from remembering things for a test to how your genes work!
ReplyDeleteI have never really thought of sleep deprivation as a threat to my genes. It is shocking and definitely worrisome that lack of sleep can have such an effect on not only your basic health needs, but also more complicated gene stability. This really makes me realize the importance of sleep and how I should try and get more of it!
ReplyDeleteLack of sleep has been blamed for everything from poor driving to memory problems. One of the experiments of lacking sleep, researchers think they’ve started to pinpoint why: week-long sleep studies of people resting for 10 hours a night vs. six hours showed significant changes in gene activity.When sleep was restricted to under six hours a night, researchers noted that 444 genes showed suppressed activity, and 267 genes showed more activity. Those genes control everything from the body’s immune system to its reaction to stress.
ReplyDeleteSleeping has been important to us yet I find it is extremely difficult for me to get an adequate amount of sleep since I'm either staying up late for school work or troubling go to bed early.
They stated that stress reactions are amplified and I know for me that is true. I have anxiety and stress disorders and lack of sleep really makes it worse. The article also said people who lacked sleep in general seemed to have a very high rate of diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and other illnesses. I have a family history of strokes, high blood pressure and diatbetes so this is a little concerning to me since I almost never get the amount of sleep recommended in this article and I can tell my immune health is affected when I don't get enough sleep and my muscles get sore but I never thought of my genes themselves being affected. I guess I will be paying more attention to how much sleep I get from now on.
ReplyDeleteI just wrote a paper on how sleep deprivation increases your heart rate, and an increased heart rate increases your risk for a cardiovascular event and mortality rate. A lack a sleep has also been linked too obesity, psychiatric disorders, dementia, and metabolic disorders.
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