New research suggests that sleep problems in early middle age may be linked to faster brain aging later in life. A study published on October 23, 2024, in Neurology found that people who have trouble sleeping around the age of 40 tend to show more signs of brain aging by the time they reach their mid-50s.
Although the study doesn’t prove that poor sleep directly causes faster brain aging, it does highlight a connection between sleep issues and the aging of the brain.
Dr. Clémence Cavaillès from the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, explained that previous research had already linked sleep problems to a decline in thinking and memory skills as people get older.
This decline increases the risk of developing dementia. “Our study, which used brain scans to determine participants’ brain age, suggests that poor sleep is linked to nearly three years of additional brain aging as early as middle age,” said Dr. Cavaillès.
The study involved 589 participants, who were around 40 years old at the start. Each person completed sleep-related questionnaires at the beginning of the study and again five years later. Fifteen years after the study started, the participants underwent brain scans.
The researchers asked the participants questions about their sleep, such as whether they had trouble falling asleep, woke up several times during the night, or woke up too early.
Based on their answers, the researchers identified six key sleep problems: short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, waking up early, and feeling sleepy during the day.
Participants were grouped into three categories based on the number of these sleep problems they reported. Those in the low-risk group had no more than one poor sleep characteristic, while the middle group reported two to three, and the high group had more than three sleep problems.
At the beginning of the study, 70% of participants fell into the low-risk group, 22% were in the middle group, and 8% were in the high group.
When the participants underwent brain scans 15 years later, the researchers looked for signs of brain shrinkage, which is an indicator of brain aging. They used machine learning to estimate the brain age for each participant.
Even after accounting for other factors like age, sex, high blood pressure, and diabetes, the researchers found a clear trend: people in the middle group showed signs of brain aging equivalent to being 1.6 years older than those in the low-risk group.
Those in the high-risk group showed signs of brain aging equivalent to being 2.6 years older.
The study found that certain sleep problems—such as poor sleep quality, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, and waking up too early—were especially linked to signs of faster brain aging.
This was particularly true when participants experienced these sleep problems consistently over the five-year period.
Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a co-author of the study from the University of California, San Francisco, emphasized the importance of tackling sleep problems early in life.
She suggested adopting healthy sleep habits like maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, getting regular exercise, avoiding caffeine and alcohol close to bedtime, and using relaxation techniques.
“Our findings highlight the importance of addressing sleep problems earlier in life to preserve brain health,” Dr. Yaffe noted.
The researchers believe that improving sleep quality could help protect the brain as people age, but more research is needed to find effective ways to do this. They are also interested in exploring the long-term impact of sleep quality on younger people’s brain health.
One limitation of the study is that the participants reported their own sleep problems, which may not have been entirely accurate.
Despite this, the study provides a new perspective on the link between sleep quality and brain aging, suggesting that good sleep habits could be an important factor in maintaining brain health in middle age and beyond.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about inflammation that may actually slow down cognitive decline in older people, and low vitamin D may speed up cognitive decline.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about common exercises that could protect against cognitive decline, and results showing that this MIND diet may protect your cognitive function, prevent dementia.
The research findings can be found in Neurology.
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