How Sleep Deprivation Can Cause Inflammation

Inflammation is the body’s natural response to illness and injury. When you get a respiratory infection or cut yourself, your immune system activates white blood cells, which then release cytokines and other inflammatory molecules that attack invaders and protect the body’s tissues.

When this response is temporary, it serves as an effective defense mechanism. But when inflammation persists, it can contribute to the development of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Although these signs of inflammation can be attributed to other factors – stress, smoking, or obesity, for example – they suggest that sleep deprivation plays a role in the inflammatory process. And they could help explain why people who sleep poorly are at risk for cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, and diabetes, among other chronic conditions.

How does sleep deprivation contribute to inflammation? One theory focuses on blood vessels. During sleep, blood pressure drops, and blood vessels relax. When sleep is restricted, blood pressure doesn’t decline as it should, which could trigger cells in blood vessel walls that activate inflammation.

Sleep deprivation might also alter the body’s stress response system.

Additionally, a lack of sleep interferes with the normal function of the brain’s cleaning system, known as the glymphatic system (not to be confused with the lymphatic system in the rest of the body). During the deepest sleep phases, cerebrospinal fluid rushes through the brain, sweeping away beta-amyloid protein linked to brain cell damage.

Without a good night’s sleep, this cleaning process is less thorough, allowing the protein to accumulate, leading to inflammation. Then, a vicious cycle sets in. Beta-amyloid buildup in the brain’s frontal lobe starts to impair deeper, non-REM slow-wave sleep. This damage makes it harder both to sleep and to retain and consolidate memories.

Just one night of lost sleep can keep beta-amyloid levels higher than usual.

The problem is not so much a single night’s poor sleep, which you can compensate for, but a cumulative pattern of sleep loss, leading to decreases in the structural integrity, size, and function of brain regions like the thalamus and hippocampus, which are especially vulnerable to damage during the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

 

Improving Sleep

When you wake up in the morning, are you refreshed and ready to go, or groggy and grumpy? For many people, the second scenario is all too common.

The latest research on sleep includes information about numerous health conditions and medications that can interfere with normal sleep, as well as prescription and over-the-counter medications used to treat sleep disorders.

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Do you feel like you struggle half the night just to get a few hours of shuteye, and then wake up feeling exhausted? You’re not alone. An estimated 50-70 million Americans have some type of sleep disorder. And it’s not just frustrating — not getting enough sleep can have serious consequences for your health.

There’s no reason to miss out on a great night’s sleep. The experts at MM Center have created Improving Sleep: A guide to a good night’s rest, a Special Health Report that brings you the latest research on the science of sleep, plus the information you need to fall asleep faster, stay asleep all night, and wake up feeling refreshed.