Chronic insomnia ages brain by a year

Chronic insomnia can age the brain and increase the risk of dementia.

Poor sleepers have a brain that is biologically a year older, and which has more inflammatory markers that make it more susceptible to poor cognition and dementia, say researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

The researchers studied brain scans of 27,500 middle-aged people who had taken part in the UK Biobank study.  Although they were able to confirm a link between sleep and brain health, as other studies have done, the researchers weren’t sure why poor sleep patterns could lead to dementia.  While inflammation could be a factor, poor sleep could also be affecting the brain’s capacity to clear waste or increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

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