New research shows that not getting enough quality sleep could age your brain faster than your body, raising concerns about long-term cognitive health issues. ALSO READ: Not well-rested? Ways to improve sleep quality According to a study published in The Lancet on September 30, poor sleep health is linked to older brain age, potentially due to increased systemic inflammation. Sleep is more than just physical rest. It helps regulate metabolism, supports immune function, clears brain waste, and strengthens memory. ALSO READ: What you should know about dementia But as people grow older, sleep problems become increasingly common, and these disturbances may play a role in cognitive decline and dementia. “Sleep disturbances may contribute to the development of dementia,” the study notes, highlighting that poor sleep doesn’t just follow brain disease. Instead, it may actively accelerate it. ALSO READ: Most medical students in Rwanda suffer “poor sleep quality”- research Researchers analyzed data from more than 27,000 middle-aged and older adults and used advanced brain imaging techniques to estimate “brain age,” a measure of how old a person’s brain appears compared to their chronological age. When the brain appears older than it should, it can signal early changes in brain health that may lead to cognitive decline. The findings revealed that participants with intermediate or poor sleep patterns had brains that appeared older than their actual age. On average, people with intermediate sleep habits had brains 0.6 years older than their chronological age, while those with poor sleep had brains about a year older. For every one-point drop in a healthy sleep score, the brain age gap increased by roughly half a year. ALSO READ: How change in diet can curb inflammation The study also found that systemic inflammation; the body’s chronic low-level immune response; explained more than 10% of the link between poor sleep and brain aging. “This is consistent with evidence that sleep disturbances promote inflammation, which in turn can drive neurodegeneration, which is a progressive loss of neurons,” the authors explain. The new study goes further by examining overall sleep health, including sleep duration, insomnia, snoring, daytime sleepiness, and natural sleep-wake cycles. By looking at these factors together, researchers captured the complex ways poor sleep can affect the brain. Having a brain that looks older than one’s chronological age is an early warning sign that brain health is not optimal. The study suggests that improving sleep may be a simple, actionable way to protect the brain and potentially reduce the risk of dementia later in life.
