(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Not getting enough sleep won't just make you tired.
It may also make you sick.
People who sleep less than seven hours at night are three times more likely to
develop respiratory illness after being exposed to a cold virus, compared to
those who sleep eight hours or more.
To find their data, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh
studied 153 healthy men and women whose average age was 37. Participants
reported daily how many hours and how well they slept each night over a two week
period. They were then given nasal drops containing rhinovirus, a common cause
of the cold. After 28 days, a blood sample was taken from them to measure their
antibody response.
In
addition to less sleep, an individual was also more likely to develop a cold if
they slept less efficiently. Those who spent less than 92 percent of their time
in bed asleep were five and a half times more likely to get sick than those who
had a 98 percent sleep efficiency rate. Feeling rested, however, was not linked
to colds.
"When the components of clinical illness (infection and signs or symptoms) were
examined separately, sleep efficiency but not sleep duration was associated with
signs and symptoms of illness. However, neither was associated with infection,"
study authors wrote. "A possible explanation for this finding is that sleep
disturbance influences the regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, histamines
and other symptom mediators that are released in response to infection."
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009;169[1]:62-67
