Busy brokers may choose to skimp on the zzz’s when the work piles up, but it could be putting you at risk of serious disease.
Busy brokers may choose to skimp on the zzz’s when the work piles up, but the habit could be putting you at risk of Alzheimer’s and other serious diseases.
Regular sleep-fasters will be well-aware of the short-term impact it has on concentration, reaction times and decision-making, but new research suggests the long-term effects could be far more severe.
According to a study published in the journal Science, cellular waste can build up in our brains throughout our lifetime, and sleep is the body’s time to clean up.
According to the researchers, a kind of plumbing network exists in the brain that flushes out cellular waste.
When mice were injected with beta-amyloid, a substance strongly linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease, the brains of sleeping mice flushed out the substance faster than those that were awake.
Brain cells were also observed to shrink during sleep, widening the space between cells and allowing waste to pass through more easily.
While the study took place using mice as test subjects, researchers say there is strong evidence to suggest human brains work in similar ways. The next step is identify the process in human brains, say researchers.
