Researchers studying the science of sleep are building a growing body of evidence connecting both the quantity and quality of slumber to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Now a group shows that people who take longer to enter the dream phase of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM) may be exhibiting an early symptom of the disease, according to work published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.
What are the Sleep Implications
The results have implications for three groups: people concerned about their Alzheimer’s risk, doctors who diagnose and treat the disease, and researchers who study sleep.
For that first group, Yue Leng, a psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and an author of the study, has a simple message: “You really, really need to pay attention to your sleep,” she says.
Researchers don’t yet know whether someone’s difficulty entering REM is only a diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s disease or a contributing factor to the disease’s onset. But noticing such a problem should be a wakeup call.
Physicians might want to add that issue to their diagnostic toolbox when screening for Alzheimer’s disease. They also might consider recommending various therapies that could improve someone’s sleep quality — perhaps by using light therapy to help reset their circadian rhythm or by recommending melatonin.
And researchers might consider exploring different stages of sleep when looking at Alzheimer’s disease. Leng says much of the work so far has centered on “long wave” sleep, which constitutes the bulk of our slumber.
Read More: What You Need to Know About the 6 Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease
Taking a Look at Sleep
To reach these conclusions, researchers monitored the sleep of two groups of people with an average age of 70 —half of whom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Researchers monitored their brainwave activity, eye movement, heart rate and breathing during an overnight stay.
They then divided the results into early and delayed REM sleepers. The early group achieved REM less than 98 minutes after falling asleep. The late group reached it more than 193 minutes after falling asleep.
Alzheimer’s patients in the study were more likely to have delayed REM sleep, and they also tended to have higher levels of two toxic proteins — amyloid and tau — considered reliable biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. They also had 39 percent less of a specific healthy protein that tends to decline in people with Alzheimer’s.
For now, finding Alzheimer’s biomarkers requires brain imaging, which often happens well after a patient experiences cognitive decline and memory loss. Being aware of a difficulty falling asleep or the inability to dream might provide an earlier warning, which could then improve treatment.
“I would advocate for more attention to this particular stage of sleep,” Leng says. “If you have concerns, you should be talking to clinicians about this Alzheimer's disease risk.”
This article is not offering medical advice and should be used for informational purposes only.
Read More: The 4 Main Types of Dementia
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association. Association of rapid eye movement sleep latency with multimodal biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease
Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
