Research results show that people who say 'I was going to take a nap for an hour' may have started Alzheimer's disease.



Experts

recommend taking a nap for about 30 minutes, as it reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke, strengthens memory and learning, and improves cognitive ability. However, a 14-year study found that if the nap was too long, it could be a sign of dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease.

Daytime napping and Alzheimer's dementia: A potential bidirectional relationship --Li ---- Alzheimer's & Dementia --Wiley Online Library
https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.12636

Longer naps in the day may be an early sign of dementia in older adults
https://theconversation.com/longer-naps-in-the-day-may-be-an-early-sign-of-dementia-in-older-adults-179365

While younger nap studies have shown that naps are beneficial for cognitive function, some older studies suggest a link between naps and cognitive impairment. .. According to Yue Leng, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, many of these studies are self-reported about a single nap and may not be very accurate.

Therefore, a research team by Leng et al., Who specializes in the relationship between sleep in the elderly and neurodegenerative diseases, investigated whether changes in nap habits are predictors of cognitive decline and other factors at Rush University in the United States. Conducted a study to analyze data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a long-term study of cognitive function and aging conducted by.



The data analyzed included activity patterns recorded by 1401 elderly people with an average age of 81 years who participated in the Rush Memory and Aging Project wearing wristwatch-type devices for 14 years. About 75% of the participants had no cognitive impairment at the start of the study, the remaining 20% had mild cognitive impairment, a reserve for dementia, and 4% had Alzheimer's disease.

As a result of analyzing the relationship between the length of time and cognitive function by defining the daytime time when the participants did not move for a long time as a nap, those who had cognitive impairment by the end of the survey period and those who did not It was found that there was a clear difference in nap habits between them. Specifically, the average nap time for participants who did not develop cognitive impairment was '11 minutes', while those diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment more than doubled '25 minutes', Alzheimer's disease. The person said that it was '68 minutes', which was three times that.

Overall, older people who take a nap at least once a day for an hour or more are 40% more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than those who do not take a nap every day or who take a nap for less than an hour. became. This did not change even after adjusting factors such as lifestyle-related illnesses other than naps, chronic illnesses, and medications taken.



The research team needs to be aware that the survey data used in the analysis is targeted at the elderly and may not apply to non-elderly people, such as young people. In addition, the results of this experiment only showed the relationship between nap time and cognitive dysfunction, but did not clarify the causal relationship such as 'too much nap is the cause of cognitive decline'. , The research team suggests that 'longer naps can be a precursor to cognitive decline.'

On top of that, Mr. Ren said, 'Since almost all the participants had extended sleep time, the longer nap time itself is one aspect of normal aging, but this time there is a limit. It was shown by research. '

in Science, Posted by log1l_ks