Eat, Sleep, Sleep

Man oh man, if there ever existed a case for saying "I TOLD you so..." here it is...

There is research that says if you get plenty of sleep now, you have less risk of dementia later on.

Sure, there are factors (age, genetics) that will make dementia inevitable for some, no matter how much sleep they are getting. There is no way we can control that. But with 50 million people around the world diagnosed with dementia, why not do what we can to avoid joining that crowd?

The journal called Nature Communications is out with a study showing that high-quality sleep in middle age is a great prevention tactic. They followed 8,000 people in the United Kingdom over 25 years, and found that getting not even six hours of shuteye in one's 50s and 60s gives a 30% higher risk of dementia as compared with those who log (get it?) 7 hours +.

Stephanie Stahl, a sleep disorder specialist with Indiana University Health, says that while this is not the first study to make this sleep connection, but it is one of the largest.

“We know that getting insufficient sleep or getting poor quality sleep increases the risk of dementia,” Stahl told the HuffPost. “This is a larger scale study, so it definitely adds value to the evidence.”

Sure, it makes sense, but no one can say exactly WHY it's true, but there are theories:

“During sleep, our brain is allowed to clear toxins and that includes beta-amyloid,” Stahl said. (Beta-amyloid is a clumping brain protein that is often associated with  Alzheimer’s disease.)

She goes on: “Also, our sleep is really important for us to consolidate our memories. Sleep disruption leads to inflammation and that can lead to clogging of the arteries, and that includes those arteries in the brain.”

Experts say that while there is no assurance that any certain amount of sleep now will have us all bright-eyed well into our 90s, just like chicken soup for a cold, it can't hurt!