September 14, 2009

Long Sleepers & Dementia?


One thing everyone knows about health is" it's always good to get a nice long night's sleep. But now some scientists may be proving that wrong, and showing that people who are "long sleepers" are also more likely to develop dementia!

The research, conducted in Spain was on serious long sleepers who don't just get the traditional 8 hours of sleep, but who slept 9 or more hours per day (this included naps). And the findings were that those who slept 9 hours or more were twice as likely to develop dementia!

The study only found the pattern though, and did not prove a cause and effect relationship, which means that instead of sleeping longer making you crazy, you might be sleeping longer because you're already crazy! Read the details below, and maybe it'll cause some sleepless nights to help bring down our average a bit...

Long Sleepers & Dementia?
msnbc

How could something that feels so good -- a long night's sleep -- have negative consequences? Unfortunately, that is one possibility that results of a new study suggest: Older adults who sleep nine or more hours each day may have a higher risk of developing dementia than those who spend fewer hours in bed...

Long Sleepers & Dementia?

Posted at September 14, 2009 4:25 AM
Comments

unfortunate you use the word 'crazy' for such an unfortunate and desperate condition. also what is the point of the research if it cannot distinguish between cause/effect. It is well known that people with dementia have erratic sleep patterns and a 'side effect' of dementia is depression..leading to difficulty getting to sleep..but long periods once there...very misleading

Posted by: Ian at September 14, 2009 6:42 AM

My Aunt is 88 and sleeps 10 hours a night without getting up then when she gets up she east breakfast and then lays down and takes a nap. She has Dementia and remembers less as time passes.

Posted by: RJF at September 14, 2009 7:35 AM

People who have bi-polar disorder or any kind of depression often sleep long hours when they are in "recovery". So the body's natural treatment of dementia or depression or other mental illnesses may be sleeping long hours. It sounds like they may have misinterpreted which condition caused which effect.

Posted by: JEff GRegerson at September 14, 2009 1:10 PM

Ian - that's why I skip this site whenever i read MSN stories..you should too!

Posted by: Tim at September 14, 2009 3:14 PM

My mom always slept a lot and very hard too. She was hard to wake up. She had Alzheimers in her 60's and passed at 73.

Posted by: K Sims at September 14, 2009 3:20 PM

I wonder if the studies they did were mainly on the elderly who by the way naturally sleep more and due to age are more likely to get dementia. The MSN stories seem to be not fully researched when they write their articles.

Posted by: Barbra at September 14, 2009 3:39 PM

I thought the older you were the less you tended to sleep. I remember in a psych class that it was questioned whether aging might be partially due to this lack of sleep, since during sleep is when much regeneration occurs. It may have had as much to do with the type of sleep too.

This has been true for the older folks I have come in contact with. They just seem to go to bed early but get up earlier and don't sleep as soundly.

Posted by: JenK at September 16, 2009 6:07 AM

Tim: you are right....I shall improve my skipping in future!

Posted by: Ian at September 22, 2009 9:28 AM

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