Wellness
Lack of sleep can make you feel 10 years older, study finds
Feeling sleepy can make you feel ten years older, according to researchers at Stockholm University, who have discovered that sleep may hold the secret to staying young at heart.
Do you ever find yourself longing for the energy and vitality of your younger years? Feeling young is not just a matter of perception – it is actually related to objective health outcomes.
Previous studies have shown that feeling younger than one’s actual age is associated with longer, healthier lives. There is even support for subjective age to predict actual brain age, with those feeling younger having younger brains.
“Given that sleep is essential for brain function and overall well-being, we decided to test whether sleep holds any secrets to preserving a youthful sense of age,” says Leonie Balter, researcher at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, who worked on the study, which is published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
In the first study, 429 individuals aged 18 to 70 were asked how old they felt, how many days in the past month they had not gotten enough sleep, and how sleepy they were. It turned out that for each night with insufficient sleep in the past month, participants felt on average 0.23 years older.
In a second study, the researchers tested whether it was indeed the lack of sleep causing participants to feel older. They conducted an experimental sleep restriction study involving 186 participants aged 18 to 46. Participants restricted their sleep for two nights –only four hours in bed each night – and another time slept sufficiently for two nights, with nine hours in bed each night.
After sleep restriction, participants felt on average 4.4 years older compared to when having enjoyed sufficient sleep. The effects of sleep on subjective age appeared to be related to how sleepy they felt. Feeling extremely alert was related to feeling 4 years younger than one’s actual age, while extreme sleepiness was related to feeling 6 years older than one’s actual age.
“This means that going from feeling alert to sleepy added a striking 10 years to how old one felt,” says Leonie Balter, who states that the implications for our daily lives are clear.
“Safeguarding our sleep is crucial for maintaining a youthful feeling. This, in turn, may promote a more active lifestyle and encourage behaviours that promote health, as both feeling young and alert are important for our motivation to be active.”
Routine vaccines for adults may reduce dementia risk, a review of more than 100 million people suggests.
The research found both flu and shingles vaccines were associated with a lower risk in adults aged 50 and over.
The shingles (herpes zoster) jab was linked to a 24 per cent lower risk of any dementia and a 47 per cent lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
A joint Italian-Canadian neuroscience review points to a pattern that public health experts say is hard to ignore, suggesting vaccines against common infections may offer long-term protection against the UK’s leading cause of death.
With an ageing population, about two million people are projected to be living with dementia in the UK by 2050.
Prof Sir Andrew Pollard is director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and former chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
He said: “Vaccines for pneumonia, shingles, and influenza in older adults have been shown to reduce the risk of serious infections and hospitalisation caused by these diseases.
“But studies in the past few years have raised the intriguing possibility that vaccination could also provide a welcome reduction in the risk of dementia, a disease which places a huge burden on society and the NHS.”
A separate large-scale randomised trial in Wales compared shingles vaccines Zostavax and Shingrix to address the “healthy user effect”, where people who get vaccinated tend to be more health-conscious. As both groups were vaccinated, this helped control for that bias.
The results showed those receiving the newer Shingrix vaccine had a substantially lower risk of developing dementia over subsequent years.
Dr Maxime Taquet, clinical lecturer in psychiatry at Oxford, who led that study, said: “The size and nature of this study makes these findings convincing, and should motivate further research.”
Higher intake of some food preservatives is linked with increased risks of type 2 diabetes and cancer, two studies suggest.
The findings were based on diet and health data from more than 100,000 French adults in the NutriNet-Santé study between 2009 and 2023.
Of 17 preservatives analysed individually, higher consumption of 12 was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Higher intake overall was linked to a 47 per cent increase in incidence.
In the cancer research, several preservatives were linked to higher risk. Potassium sorbate was associated with a 14 per cent higher risk of overall cancer and a 26 per cent higher risk of breast cancer, while sodium nitrite was linked to a 32 per cent higher risk of prostate cancer.
Overall preservative intake was not linked to cancer incidence in the cohort.
Researchers said several compounds could alter immune and inflammatory pathways, possibly triggering cancer development.
Both were observational studies, so they show association rather than cause.
Mathilde Touvier, a coordinator of the diabetes study, said: “This is the first study in the world on the links between preservative additives and the incidence of type 2 diabetes.
“Although the results need to be confirmed, they are consistent with experimental data suggesting the harmful effects of several of these compounds.”
Prof William Gallagher, of University College Dublin, who was not involved with the research, said: “These higher rates of cancer are modest but are significant when taken at a population-based level in terms of potential impact.”
The researchers called on manufacturers to limit unnecessary preservatives and backed advice for consumers to eat fresh, minimally processed foods.
Weaker, fragmented body clocks are linked to higher dementia risk, new research suggests.
The study also found that people whose activity levels peaked later in the day, rather than earlier, faced a higher risk.
Circadian rhythm is the body’s internal clock, regulating the 24-hour sleep-wake cycle and other processes including hormones, digestion and body temperature.
With a strong rhythm, the body clock aligns well with the 24-hour day, sending clear signals for body functions.
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Texas studied 2,183 people with an average age of 79 who did not have dementia.
Participants wore small heart monitors for an average of 12 days to measure rest and activity patterns.
Over an average follow-up of three years, 176 people developed dementia. Those with weaker rhythms had nearly 2.5 times the risk of dementia compared to those with the strongest rhythms.
People whose activity peaked at 2.15pm or later had a 45 per cent increased risk compared to those peaking earlier in the afternoon.
Wendy Wang, the study author, said: “Changes in circadian rhythms happen with ageing, and evidence suggests that circadian rhythm disturbances may be a risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.
“Disruptions in circadian rhythms may alter body processes like inflammation, and may interfere with sleep, possibly increasing amyloid plaques linked to dementia, or reducing amyloid clearance from the brain.
“Future studies should examine the potential role of circadian rhythm interventions, such as light therapy or lifestyle changes, to determine if they may help lower a person’s risk of dementia.”
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