Bad sleep in your 40s may accelerate brain aging: new study

What a nightmare!

Sleeping poorly in your 40s may age your brain faster — and you might feel the effects into your late 50s, a new study finds.

“Our findings highlight the importance of addressing sleep problems earlier in life to preserve brain health, including maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, exercising, avoiding caffeine and alcohol before going to bed and using relaxation techniques,” said study author Dr. Kristine Yaffe of UC San Francisco.

Nearly 600 adults around 40 years old completed a sleep questionnaire at the start of the study and five years later.

The questions included: “Do you usually have trouble falling asleep?” “Do you usually wake up several times at night?” and “Do you usually wake up far too early?”

The researchers noted if participants experienced short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, troubles falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, early morning awakening or daytime sleepiness. Experts generally recommend seven to nine hours of shuteye a night.

Participants were divided into three groups based on their sleep traits. Those in the low group (about 70%) had none or one of the six characteristics. Middle group participants (22%) had two or three, and those in the high group (8%) had four to six.

Fifteen years after the start of the study, participants underwent cranial scans that helped researchers calculate their brain age.

After accounting for age, sex, high blood pressure, diabetes and other factors, researchers determined that middle group brains were 1.6 years older on average than low group brains. Those in the high group had an average brain age 2.6 years older.

Of the six sleep habits, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling and staying asleep and early morning awakening were linked to greater brain age, especially when people experienced these problems for at least five years.

The findings were published Wednesday in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The researchers emphasized that their study, which was funded by the National Institute on Aging, does not prove that poor sleep accelerates brain aging — it only shows an association between the two.

One limitation of the research is that participants reported their own sleep problems and they may not have accurately characterized them.

“Future research should focus on finding new ways to improve sleep quality and investigating the long-term impact of sleep on brain health in younger people,” Yaffe said.

Also Wednesday in Neurology, Yale researchers reported that middle-aged people with uncontrolled blood pressure, blood sugar or cholesterol who don’t exercise, eat healthfully or sleep well face a higher risk of stroke, dementia or depression later in life.

“Our study found that making these healthy lifestyle choices in middle age can have meaningful impacts on brain health later in life,” study author Dr. Santiago Clocchiatti-Tuozzo said.

Dr. Thomas Kilkenny, director of the Institute of Sleep Medicine at Northwell Health Staten Island University Hospital, said continuing to get adequate amounts of sleep and good quality slumber is vital in maintaining peak cognitive performance. 

“New evidence suggests that some cognitive capacities remain degraded by sleep deprivation despite return of adequate sleep, suggesting that sleep loss may permanently affect specific cognitive systems,” Kilkenny, who was not involved with the new research, told The Post.

“This suggests that frequent periods of sleep deprivation may trigger a permanent cognitive decline leading to dementia,” he added.