Lack of Sleep May be Causing Alzheimer's

There has been a recent discovery that states that lack of sleep may be linked to the Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is a fatal brain disease that has no cure, Alzheimer’s results in memory loss. It destroys brain cells. But recently David Holtzman who is a neurologist and neuroscientist from the Washington University in St. Louis has been conducted studies associated with this cause.

Basically they have found out that the lack of sleep results in more brain plaque, which is one of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. They preformed a study with mice, the mice that didn’t get a lot of sleep developed more plaque in their brains then than mice that got enough sleep. “This is the first experimental study that clearly shows that disrupted sleep may contribute to the disease process,’ says Peter Meerlo, a neuroscientist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. ‘What makes it exciting for me is that it shows that chronic sleep loss, in the long run, changes the brain in ways that may contribute to disease” (Alzheimer’s linked to Lack of Zzzzs). Holtzman did a study that involved the levels of amyloid-beta. He said that even though the clumping of the amyloid-beta isn’t exactly proven that they believe it to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Although the mice in Holtzman experiment didn’t experience a rise in amyloid-beta tissue, they did realize that the longer the mice were awake the more their amyloid-beta levels increased. They also conducted the same experiment with humans and the cerebral spinal fluid. They found the same results that the amyloid-beta levels increased when the people were awake and decreased when they were sleeping.

When dealing with the mice they injected orexin, which promotes wakefulness and was used to help the mice stay awake. The researchers don’t know exactly if it’s the orexin, which is causing the amyloid-beta levels to increase, or if it really is lack of sleep. “Sleep deprived mice made more plaques then well-rested mice, but a drug that blocks orexin’s action was able to stop plaque buildup” (Alzheimer’s linked to Lack of Zzzzs). So in result of that it could be said that orexin inhibitors could be used to help decrease the levels of amyloid-beta, but the drug is equivalent to a sleeping pill and would in result make the patient very tired. But either way there is some reason why less sleep accounts to more amyloid-beta, but that reason is still unknown.

“It is interesting that there may be a link between sleep and the build-up of the protein associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease,’ says Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer’s society in London. ‘However, there are many other biological factors that may have an impact on the protein’s production, so further research in this area would be needed” (Lack of Sleep Linked to Alzheimer’s). More research will be done on this topic of wither lack of sleep can really lead to Alzheimer’s, either way we should all be getting enough sleep during the night. Exercise is a good way to help induce sleep if in fact it is proven that sleep is a cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

Works Citied

Saey, Tina Hesman. “Alzheimer’s Linked to Lack of Zzzzs.” Science News. 24 Oct.

2009. 1 Nov. 2009

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Hamzelou, Jessica. “Lack of Sleep Linked to Alzheimer’s.” New Scientist. Sep. 2009. 1

Nov. 2009.

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