Reversing ageing: Elderly need as much sleep as younger people to turn back the clock

New Delhi: Ageing is a natural biological process that all of us have to experience at some point in our life. In short, it is a sign of becoming older.

While we can't either stop or avoid ageing, we can slow down the process by adopting a healthier lifestyle such as eating healthy, being physically active, getting enough sleep, not smoking, etc.

Similarly, researchers say that older people need as much sleep as those who are younger in order to turn back their clock on ageing.

In a new study, researchers at the UC Berkeley researchers argued that the unmet sleep needs of the elderly elevate their risk of memory loss and a wide range of mental and physical disorders.

"Nearly every disease killing us in later life has a causal link to lack of sleep," said senior author, Matthew Walker.

"We`ve done a good job of extending life span, but a poor job of extending our health span. We now see sleep, and improving sleep, as a new pathway for helping remedy that."Unlike more cosmetic markers of aging, such as wrinkles and gray hair, sleep deterioration has been linked to such conditions as Alzheimer`s disease, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and stroke, he said.

Though older people are less likely than younger cohorts to notice and/or report mental fogginess and other symptoms of sleep deprivation, numerous brain studies reveal how poor sleep leaves them cognitively worse off.

Moreover, the shift from deep, consolidated sleep in youth to fitful, dissatisfying sleep can start as early as one`s 30s, paving the way for sleep-related cognitive and physical ailments in middle age.

And, while the pharmaceutical industry is raking in billions by catering to insomniacs, Walker warns that the pills designed to help us doze off are a poor substitute for the natural sleep cycles that the brain needs in order to function well.

"Don`t be fooled into thinking sedation is real sleep. It`s not," he said."The parts of the brain deteriorating earliest are the same regions that give us deep sleep," said article lead author Bryce Mander.

Aging typically brings on a decline in deep non-rapid eye movement (NREM) or "slow wave sleep," and the characteristic brain waves associated with it, including both slow waves and faster bursts of brain waves known as "sleep spindles.

"Youthful, healthy slow waves and spindles help transfer memories and information from the hippocampus, which provides the brain`s short-term storage, to the prefrontal cortex, which consolidates the information, acting as the brain`s long-term storage."

Sadly, both these types of sleep brain waves diminish markedly as we grow old, and we are now discovering that this sleep decline is related to memory decline in later life," said Winer.

The findings reveal how older people are losing out on deep sleep because of damage to their brain, causing illnesses and speeding up the ageing process.

The study has been published in the journal Neuron.

(With ANI inputs)