Sleeping between eight and nine hours a night is a formula that helps maintain good health. But many young people fail to maintain a sleep routine.
In a study published recently in Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatrya group of researchers from Sweden found that lack of sleep in adolescence increases the risk of developing multiple sclerosis later on.
Multiple sclerosis is one that usually appears in the third decade of life, with twice the frequency in females. Most cases are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50. While not fatal, it is very disabling.
Multiple sclerosis affects the central nervous system. The nerve fibers of the cells of the nervous system are covered by a sheath called myelin, essential for the stimuli to be correctly propagated.
In this pathology, myelin is destroyed, preventing adequate communication between the brain and the body. On the other hand, the inflammatory process that occurs in this disease damages the nerve cells themselves, causing permanent loss of various functions, depending on the affected areas.
according to Study Findsprevious investigations had already shown that doing shift work at a young age can increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis.
In this recent study, researchers used data from the Epidemiological Investigation of Multiple Sclerosis (EIMS) for Swedes aged between 16 and 70 years. Patients with this condition were recruited from hospitals and private neurology clinics.
The team paid particular attention to sleep patterns among 15- to 19-year-olds. In the end, they included in the analysis 2075 patients with the disease and 3164 without the condition.
To carry out the study, patients were questioned about the duration of sleep on work and school days and on weekends and free days, at different ages. Participants also had to rate the quality of their sleep at different ages.
The researchers ranked the sleep duration as short (less than seven hours a night), adequate (seven to nine hours a night) and long (ten or more hours).
The results revealed that sleeping fewer hours and having a lower quality of sleep during adolescence increased the risk of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Compared with adequate sleep, short sleep represents a 40% higher risk of developing the disease.
THE long sleepboth on workdays and on school days and weekends, did not show the same increased risk.
“Insufficient and low-quality sleep during adolescence appears to increase the risk of later developing multiple sclerosis. A restorative sleep, necessary for the proper functioning of the immune system, can be a preventive factor against the disease”, indicated the team in announcement.
“Associations have also been demonstrated between social media use and sleep patterns. THE availability of technology and access to the Internet at any time contributes to insufficient sleep among adolescents and represents an important public health issue,” the investigators added.
The team stressed, however, that one of the main limitations to their conclusions is that reverse causation may be at play. Insufficient sleep may be the result of neurological damage rather than the other way around.
Regardless, they stressed that sleeping too little or having poor quality sleep is recognized as inflammatory and harmful to the immune system.
ZAP // 
