Insomnia, late-night habits, and irregular sleep schedules may be linked to the onset of Alzheimer's disease, says a new linkurl:study;http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1180962 published online today in ScienceExpress.
"Our results are preliminary evidence that sleep abnormalities midlife could put people at risk of Alzheimer's disease later," said linkurl:David Holtzman,;http://neuro.wustl.edu/aboutus/facultybiographies/holtzman.htm, a coauthor of the study and a neurologist at the Washington University School of Medicine. The group found that the concentration of amyloid-beta, a peptide whose build-up is linked to the onset of the disease, significantly increases during periods of sleep deprivation. Alzheimer's disease is triggered as amyloid-beta transforms from a soluble, monomeric form into oligomers, protofibrils, and fibrils that build up as plaque in the brain's interstitial fluid, damaging neurons. linkurl:Jae-Eun Kang;http://dbbs.wustl.edu/dbbs/website.nsf/AA/71C759F0CCA8FB4D86257613002461DA?OpenDocument at Washington University in St. Louis and her colleagues were studying the physiological factors regulating this process when they stumbled upon the connection between sleep and Alzheimer's...
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CraigMDennis |
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