A good night’s sleep is one of the vital factors to maintain good health. A good night’s sleep may even keep colds and other infections at bay, according to a new study.
The odds that someone who sleeps five or fewer hours a night had caught a cold in the past month were 28% higher than for folks who regularly get more shuteye, the study found, as reported by www.upi.com
And for other infections -including flu, ear infections and pneumonia - short sleepers had more than 80% higher odds of having an infection in the past month compared to those sleeping seven or eight hours.
“People who sleep five or fewer hours on average are at substantially increased risk for both colds whether head or chest or other infections, compared to people who sleep seven to eight hours on average,” said study researcher Aric Prather, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco.
The findings were published as a letter April 11 in JAMA Internal Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal published twice a month by the American Medical Association.
The researchers found that people who have sleep disorders or those who have ever told their physician that they have sleep troubles had about 30% higher odds of having had a cold in the previous month. The odds of infection in the past month for people with sleep disorders were more than doubled.
Experts cannot say for sure why lack of sleep helps increase susceptibility to infections. However, Prather said, it is known that T-cells, a type of white blood cells that fight off infection, do not work as well when one is sleep-deprived.
The new study builds on Prather’s previous work, in which he exposed people to a cold virus and found there was a link between sleep duration and the risk of catching a cold.
The latest research echoes some findings of previous studies, according to Sheldon Cohen, professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. Cohen has previously studied sleep habits and susceptibility to colds. “We found that seven hours is about the breaking point,” he said. “People who got less than seven hours were at greater risk, basically.”
When many studies are examined, “the consistency across studies really does suggest that sleep is playing a role (in susceptibility to colds),” Cohen said, while adding that “the data suggest that sleep may be altering the immune function in some way,” with sufficient sleep helping it.
People can become better sleepers, Prather said. Getting up at the same time every day is a start, he said. “Make sure your bedroom is cool, quiet and dark,” he advised. “Have a wind-down period (before going to sleep).”
