I'll just note that the link between amyloid and alzheimers isn't concrete and is actually an incredibly controversial area of research[0]. The most recent attempt at treating alzheimers via amyloid is not going so well[1]. So, the causality implied by this article (poor sleep -> amyloid buildup -> alzheimers) isn't necessarily on the strongest theoretical footing.<p>[0]<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05719-4" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05719-4</a><p>[1]<a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/biogen-s-alzheimer-s-drug-candidate-takes-beating-fda-advisers" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/biogen-s-alzheimer-s...</a>
People will be tempted to infer causation here, but it's important to note that no evidence of causation is presented. It is most likely that some third condition causes both poor sleep and amyloid-b accumulation (since correlation usually doesn't indicate causation).
I hesitate to support HN's obsession with random Alzheimer's theories, but there's been a lot of research lately on the glymphatic system, vessels that clean waste protein out of the brain during sleep. This study is in line with that research.<p>The wikipedia page gives a good background on the glymphatic system: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system</a><p><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6512/50.abstract" rel="nofollow">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6512/50.abstract</a>
<a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373" rel="nofollow">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373</a>
Based on this, if you are at risk for Alzheimers (your 23andme report shows this), then one of the most important things you can do today is to religiously track your sleep and make sure you get enough deep sleep daily.<p>In my anecdotal experience, if you don't get enough deep sleep for a sustained period of time, you start showing minor cognitive defects - e.g mixing up words, not being able to write long, irritability. Tracking sleep and 'catching up' makes all this go away.<p>This is especially important for people who are caffeine sensitive, but drink a lot of caffeine. You end up getting 5-6 hours of sleep nightly, and have this constantly mounting cumulative sleep deficit.
Here is my first thought when reading this kind of studies about sustained poor sleep:<p>Did anyone do a study on parents? Are all (where all is not 100% but around me pretty close to that) parents going to suffer from Alzheimer.<p>I am saying this because with few notable exceptions (like N=2) all my friends, including myself and my wife, slept poorly at least during the first year of their child and sometimes up until second year. I think this counts as sustained poor sleep.<p>So either I am living in a bubble and I should add this to the list of stressful things I feel (I read) I am not doing right as a parent, or nature decided at one point to select children of parents predisposed to alzheimer.