A group of researchers from the University of Chicago has proved that constant lack of sleep leads to such consequences as obesity, hypertension and diabetes. So, it was found that lack of sleep for 3-4 hours per night during the whole week already affects even people of young and healthy people: an organism that has not received proper rest, copes worse with digestion and subsequent digestion of carbohydrates, and experiences stress worse. Other effects have also been observed, resulting in insufficient sleep duration in an adult, in particular, hormonal imbalance and weakening of the immune system.
The majority of previous studies were devoted to disorders-consequences of short-term sleep deprivation. For example, "volunteers" were forced to be awake for a day or two, after which they studied the changes in various mental parameters - the speed of reaction, mood, attention - that really worsened when you were not getting enough sleep. The new study examined the physiological effect of reducing the length of daily sleep to four hours for six consecutive nights.
According to the head of the researchers, Dr. van Koter, relatively prolonged sleep deprivation affects the health of a person much more heavily than forced wakefulness for 1-2 nights. That is, the accumulated deficiency of sleep brings no less harm than a lack of nutrition or inactivity. You can compare the negative effect of lack of sleep with the harm that smoking does. So, people every year less and less sleep and become more tired as a result. They can exercise regularly, how to eat, enrich their diet with the right vitamins, but if their sleep lasts only 4-5 hours a day, all other measures go wrong.
Long-term studies are firmly established: an adult needs an average of 8-9 hours of night sleep. Nevertheless, say, an ordinary American 7 hours - no more, and often even less, and the lack of sleep never replenishes. It is necessary to recognize, of course, that the need for sleep is an individual thing, so it can be somewhat hesitant. But still most of them do not get their sleep rates. Usually people do not go to bed before midnight, but wake up at the alarm signal at 4.30-5 hours. As a result, they fall asleep and on their way to work, and in the cinema or theaters, and sometimes even behind the wheel, or dozing at meetings and at workplaces ...
The researchers found that insufficient sleep duration in an adult person results in a dramatic change in metabolism, and also leads to hormonal failures similar to the effect of aging. The observation was conducted for eleven young healthy men aged 18-27 years who slept for 16 consecutive nights in a clinical laboratory. Throughout this time, exactly recorded the duration of their sleep: in the first three nights it was 8 hours, and then six nights for 4 hours with no possibility of sleeping during the day.
Repeated blood and saliva tests showed a picture of metabolic changes in sleep deprivation: first of all, the ability to absorb glucose sharply decreased in the subjects, which led to an increase in its content in the blood and stimulated the body to produce large doses of insulin, which often leads to an increase in insulin resistance, and this is a typical sign of an "adult" diabetes, also called type 2 diabetes. Recall that excess insulin also contributes to the accumulation of fat, and this increases the risk of obesity and hypertension.
The ability of the brain to use the energy of glucose and without the participation of insulin is known, but this ability after a lack of sleep manifested itself to a lesser degree. The result was a disruption of the functioning of certain areas of the brain, including those responsible for critical thinking, for memory and intelligence - thus, in the absence of sleep, there was a deterioration in these characteristics.
In addition, the researchers found that the blood content of cortisol, which serves as a measure of the level of stress, increased in conditions of lack of sleep in the late evening. This increase in the level of cortisol is typical for aging and is associated with an increase in insulin resistance and memory impairment. With a short duration of sleep in an adult, there may be changes in the level of the hormone of the thyroid gland; However, the consequences of this phenomenon are not yet completely clear. But the weakening of immunity was clearly manifested, in particular, by the nature of the response to influenza vaccine.
In further research, Chicago researchers are conducting experiments on the effect of lack of sleep on women and the elderly. In the elderly, lack of sleep, according to scientists, should be affected even more, due to the fact that the time falling in the phase of deep sleep (the most effective), falls sharply with age. In young people between the ages of 20 and 25, this phase accounts for about 100 minutes, and the same parameter for a middle-aged person is no more than 20 minutes. If a young person can easily sleep off after a lack of sleep, the elderly can compensate for a situation without sleep much more difficult.
So, the main conclusion: sleep can not be neglected, if your health is dear to you. At a regular lack of sleep it is recommended to go to bed 1-2 hours earlier. Most, as a rule, do not sleep enough schoolchildren, who go to bed after midnight, and get up early in the morning and come to school sleepy, like a zombie.
The results of a study by another group of scientists - from the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) - show that after 2 weeks of chronic lack of sleep, many people say they are used to the new regime and do not feel drowsy even though they sleep less. However, tests show that this did not correspond to reality: such people still experience fatigue, control tasks perform worse, especially tests for quick-wittedness and quick reaction.
Obviously, we are talking about the subjective and objective sense of drowsiness and their discrepancy: according to the testimony of scientists, among the subjects not a single person has adapted to sleep deprivation! A very common idea that you can do better, saving on a dream, is absolutely false: it is objectively shown that those who do not sleep do it more slowly.