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Sleep linked to better brain health in cardiometabolic disease — News-Medical
A study using data from the UK Biobank found that people with type 2 diabetes, heart disease or a previous stroke who sleep well have slightly better cognitive performance and greater brain volume than patients with the same conditions but poorer sleep. News-Medical reports on the findings of the Karolinska Institute study
Data from more than 400,000 participants
The scientists used data from more than 400,000 middle-aged and older people from the UK Biobank. More than 54,000 participants had at least one cardiometabolic disease — type 2 diabetes, heart disease or a previous stroke. Brain magnetic resonance imaging results were also available for nearly 35,000 participants
Sleep was assessed using five self-reported measures: sleep duration, circadian rhythm, insomnia, snoring and daytime sleepiness. The results were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association
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Cognitive tests and MRI
Participants with cardiometabolic diseases and better sleep measures performed slightly better on tests of general cognitive ability, problem-solving and information-processing speed. They also had greater total brain volume, as well as larger volumes of grey and white matter
The association between sleep and brain structure was more pronounced among people with type 2 diabetes, heart disease or stroke than among participants without these conditions. Abigail Dove, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute’s Aging Research Center, noted that healthy sleep may mitigate some of the adverse effects of cardiometabolic diseases on the brain
Study funding
The work was funded, among others, by the Karolinska Institute’s Strategic Research Programme in Diabetes, the Alzheimer Foundation, the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, the Swedish Society for Medical Research and the Dementia Foundation
