One bad night’s sleep may increase levels of Alzheimer’s protein

The obvious question which isn&#x27;t addressed in the article - do beta-amyloid levels return to normal after some short span of good sleep?<p>Alzheimer&#x27;s is associated with consistently elevated beta-amyloid levels, while this study was about a short-term increase. It appears on a skim of the study that the rate wasn&#x27;t checked over later days, but is expected (from rodent models) to go back down reasonably quickly. That&#x27;s not a criticism of the study - it&#x27;s an interesting result linking the disrupted sleep patterns seen in pre-Alzheimers to the protein levels seen in Alzheimer&#x27;s, and it&#x27;s also the first study to directly study this link in humans.<p>It just seems like an important caveat because the New Scientist article is a bit fuzzy on whether individual bad sleep events are being seen as a model (yes) or a risk factor (not so far) for Alzheimer&#x27;s.

As someone who&#x27;s been a chronic primary insomniac my whole life, I would not be surprised if I die young despite being very physically fit and healthy. My constant sleep deprivation has already taken a significant toll on my capacity to concentrate and it was the bane of my life during high school&#x2F;university. It&#x27;d be interesting to find out what the actual physical state of my brain is after operating for several decades on 2-4 hours of sleep every night.

As a periodic insomniac, my insomnia is often triggered by stress, but then fed by the fear of not sleeping.<p>I&#x27;ll got to bed with my brain caught in some sort of stress loop that I can&#x27;t break. Then I have the thought &quot;Oh shit, tonight&#x27;s gonna be an insomnia night, isn&#x27;t it?&quot; Just having that thought introduces a fuck ton of cortisol into my system, creating a self fulfilling prophecy.<p>...all of these stories about the dangers of those missed nights of sleep really don&#x27;t help matters.

Could this be linked to the other studies that found Alcohol to be a big contibutor to Demantia?<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;health-43141457" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;health-43141457</a><p>Since Alcohol disrupts sleep

As a consequence, are people that have had children found to have higher incidences of Alzheimer&#x27;s?

&gt; It’s possible this protein helps cause the condition, or instead that the protein forms plaques in the brain in response to the disease.<p>So it might as well be that this protein is doing something good ...

I think decreased testosterone levels due to aging in combination with lack of sleep in life causes Alzheimer’s but I cannot prove it.<p>Sadly have several family friends who has Alzheimers.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.webmd.com&#x2F;alzheimers&#x2F;news&#x2F;20101008&#x2F;low-testosterone-linked-to-alzheimers-risk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.webmd.com&#x2F;alzheimers&#x2F;news&#x2F;20101008&#x2F;low-testoster...</a>

We have 2 kids. The youngest born 3.5 yrs ago, both of us &gt; 40 at the time. My spouse kept track of # consecutive nights until we experienced at least 2 nights of uninterrupted sleep (defined as at least one parent with 8 hrs contiguous sleep 2 nights in a row).<p>489 days<p>Kid is 3y 9m now and still waiting for 5 consecutive days of uninterrupted sleep.

This is clearly a sign on how important the glymphatic system is for the brain: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scientificamerican.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;nedergaard-how-the-brain-dumps-its-trash-video&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scientificamerican.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;nedergaard-how-th...</a>

&gt; <i>of 20 volunteers over the course of two nights</i><p>Really? This is news?

Correlation != causation. The headline totally neglects this to be more sensationalist.

According to this article, my body is 95% Alzheimer&#x27;s protein due to living as a startup founder