[HN Gopher] Association of sleep duration in middle and old age ...
___________________________________________________________________
Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence
of dementia
Author : gmays
Score : 288 points
Date : 2021-04-21 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| Tycho wrote:
| I wonder if there is a very simple effect involving blood flow to
| the head. When you sleep, you lie horizontally, and so presumably
| it's easier for blood to circulate through your entire body.
| Maybe if you don't get enough horizontal time, it leads to head
| related problems like dementia and hair loss.
| TheBlight wrote:
| Possibly related:
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deep-sleep-gives-...
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Many people who don't sleep enough at night do spend the same
| time laying down as one with a full night sleep. Many people
| would spend like 5 hours sleeping and another 2 hours laying
| down resting.
| overcast wrote:
| Unless it's an emergency, I've ALWAYS prioritized sleep. It's
| just too important for health regardless of these latest
| findings. I'd call in to work if I didn't get a full nights rest
| in the past, it's not worth feeling like shit for the rest of the
| day. The culture of glamorizing working longer and harder till
| early hours of the mornings on zero sleep, has always been
| nonsense. Musk is notorious for bragging about this, and the dude
| is a rough looking 49.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Some people are willing to trade health for fortune and fame.
| There's been interviews with Musk where he describes being
| unable to turn his brain off. He's probably just leaning hard
| into the cards that life dealt him - a wildly productive brain
| that wants to go go go. I don't blame him for taking what he
| was dealt, and running with it.
| rednerrus wrote:
| He's leaning hard into the stimulants...
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| People with amphetamine habits typically look very skinny
| and unhealthy because amphetamines suppress appetite. Same
| for cocaine, ritalin and all other dopaminergic stimulants.
| They can also have facial scabs because of obsessive
| picking/scratching, and tend to be very twitchy and hyper.
| He doesn't come off that way at all during interviews.
|
| My personal experience leads me to believe that there is no
| way Elon Musk could have been dosing stimulants for the
| last 10-20 years and look as good and as relatively calm as
| he does. You build a tolerance very quickly, and any edge
| that you thought the stimulants were giving you will fade
| away fast. Then, if you increase the dose, your life will
| spiral off the rails as you become more manic, impulsive
| and irrational (eg: gambling, sex, spending sprees,
| irritability, violence, paranoia). Just Google John McAfee
| if you want to see what this can look like.
|
| IMO Elon Musk just has lucky genetics and doesn't need much
| sleep, always has high energy. There are people who are
| fortunate to be born like that.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I know - quite literally - at least a dozen people who
| take amphetamines daily and display few or none of the
| visible descriptions you list above. None of us know what
| EM ingests.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| Your reasoning might hold for an average user but not for
| a billionaire like Musk. He'll obviously have very smart
| people research and design a cycle for him that mitigates
| the usual side effects. With calorie intake monitoring,
| vitamins and anything you can remotely think of. A guy
| like Musk will also react more controlled with regard to
| amphetamines.
|
| Whether he actually uses amphetamines I have no idea. But
| I'd not be surprised to learn that he has his own RC lab.
| spurgu wrote:
| ^^ Agreed.
|
| > IMO Elon Musk just has lucky genetics and doesn't need
| much sleep, always has high energy.
|
| I remember him explaining that 6 hours was just a sweet
| spot (not the highest energy spot), that he would have
| more energy with more sleep but it wouldn't be enough to
| compensate for the lack of hours available in a day. Or
| something to this effect.
| paulpauper wrote:
| I dunno what his schedule is. Maybe he just seems busier
| than he actually is.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| There's no way you can run all these companies, be an
| international celebrity, and not be busy.
| retrac wrote:
| Sporadic, restricted use of amphetamine tends to retain
| full effect over the long-term. With regular use, the
| subtle change in perception it causes tends to persist
| longer than the physical stimulation. The appetite issue
| can sometimes be addressed simply by actively choosing to
| eat more.
|
| I do think that, in the long run, it at best averages out
| between the unavoidable highs and lows. Some people
| benefit from being able to time when those periods
| happen. Probably net loss in many cases. Still, the
| behaviour you're describing represents the end stages of
| escalating use and loss of control where they have fallen
| into dependency and/or addiction. That's not inevitable.
| Some people do seem to be able to self-regulate their use
| of strong stimulants.
|
| But you're right. It's clear some people are just
| innately more driven. In the worst case they're like Elon
| Musk, always flitting around, perpetually alternating
| between chipper and enraged, and always with coffee in
| hand and at most four hours of sleep the night before. I
| find such people infuriating, but that is probably just
| envy.
| majoram wrote:
| >My personal experience leads me to believe that there is
| no way Elon Musk could have been dosing stimulants for
| the last 10-20 years and look as good and as relatively
| calm as he does.
|
| Looks can be deceiving :P Years ago Elon was balding hard
| and now he has a full head of hair.
| novok wrote:
| the man is overweight
| majoram wrote:
| Nah he's just bulking. It's all muscle under there.
| crocsarecool wrote:
| Heck yes. When I first started in tech, I was all about the
| working into the wee hours. I wanted to be hardcore. I was
| listening to a podcast and someone mentioned what you just
| said, "A major culture problem in the tech industry is
| glamorizing lack of sleep." Hearing that gave me the slap of
| reality I needed. Just because I'm present at the computer
| doesn't mean I'm doing my best work. There would be times I was
| so tired, I'd open an application to do something then sit
| staring at it for a few moments because I couldn't remember
| what I was going to do. Now, I evangelize sleep to all my
| friends and coworkers. Especially the younger ones. I want to
| break that cycle.
| nradov wrote:
| I wonder if Elon Musk has the "short sleep" genes?
|
| https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2019/08/415261/after-10-year-searc...
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Well, many people don't sleep enough because they cannot.
| Insomnia is common in midlife.
| nradov wrote:
| Most cases of insomnia in midlife are caused by lifestyle
| problems: lack of exercise, substance abuse, and obesity-
| induced apnea.
| decafninja wrote:
| I think Elon Musk looks his age, and looks pretty ok for a 49
| year old. Granted he has money, and he's had hair transplants,
| but I've seen many late 40s early 50s people in much worse
| shape.
| maxerickson wrote:
| He's approaching the Brimley/Cocoon Line.
| benatkin wrote:
| Passed the Wendt/Cheers Line two years after Tesla was
| founded and three years before he became CEO.
| mywittyname wrote:
| He's had a lot of cosmetic...improvements. Plus he can afford
| personal chefs, trainers, doctors, stylists, etc.
| paulpauper wrote:
| those are alot of caveats though. excpet for blah blah blah
| blahb, yeah he looks good.
|
| Compared to his earlier pictures, it looks like he 'filled
| out' in terms of mody mass and skull growth. That sometimes
| happens when you take GH for long periods.
| matwood wrote:
| IME, the biggest predictor for people looking younger than
| their age is exercising and avoiding alcohol. I'm sure sleep
| is in there since people who do the other 2 normally also
| sleep ok.
| paulpauper wrote:
| i think genes are a bigger factor
| burade wrote:
| Sleep is in there, trust me. I'm 29 and look 40.
| bradford wrote:
| I'd add tobacco use and UV exposure to that list (anecdotal
| of course).
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Constant stress seems the biggest ager. Intermittent
| stress (even at high levels), punctuated by periods of
| relexation, doesn't seem as bad.
|
| See: US presidents before-and-after vs corporate CEOs
| teawrecks wrote:
| Elon looked 50 when he was 30. It's definitely the money.
| decafninja wrote:
| Probably the hair transplants.
| dmje wrote:
| It's irritating how these articles always position stuff as if us
| insomniacs have a choice. I'd chew my own arm off to get a solid
| 8 hours a night but it just doesn't happen.
| ronyeh wrote:
| I am still terrible at sleeping, but a small dose of melatonin
| and moving my phone away from my bed has helped me a bit. Does
| melatonin help you any?
| dmje wrote:
| Never tried, but thanks, will give it a go!
| arisAlexis wrote:
| Maybe a bit extreme conclusions? One day or one week of bad sleep
| detrimental? So people that have more than one kid and had bad
| sleep for years are all doomed? Like all humanity?
| fencepost wrote:
| I think reading the entire article is important here.
|
| My initial response was that the headline writer was sloppy about
| risk, correlation and causation, but towards the end it notes
| some studies where one or more nights of poor sleep appeared to
| cause measurable increases in substances that are present in
| elevated levels in dementia patients. If those studies did a
| reasonable job of showing causation, then this could be an
| extension of that work.
| andred14 wrote:
| CNN lied constantly in 2020 and before. People are still watching
| and reading their stuff?
|
| This is more propaganda - a story to cover up the thousands of
| vacc1ne reactions that are happening
| daneel_w wrote:
| Percentage or percentiles?
| gregf wrote:
| I'm screwed then. Due to a mental issue and my sleep paralysis
| I'm lucky if I sleep 3-4 hours a night as much as I would like to
| sleep more.
| pvarangot wrote:
| That little sleep has way more possible dire consequences that
| just dementia. There's literature all over the place about it,
| I don't even know where to start. How old are you? I don't know
| anyone that can live with getting that little sleep unless they
| are also on amphetamines.
| gregf wrote:
| Turning 40 in August. I haven't slept this badly all my life.
| It's got worse over the years. Specially the last 5 or so.
| I'm bipolar II, I take my meds as I'm supposed to, but I
| still seem to frequently cycle with manic episodes that keep
| me up working on projects all hours of the night. I then
| refuse to sleep all day, so I'll go to bed at say 3-4am and
| get up by 9am. Nights I can go to bed, I suffer from horrible
| sleep paralysis and that will have me waking me up throughout
| the night. Some of it is pretty disturbing, at least to me.
| So I end up giving after it happening several times in a
| night and just not sleeping any longer.
|
| Sleep issues run in the family though. My father is a logger
| and I have never seen him sleep longer than 5-6 hours my
| entire life.
|
| *EDIT* not abusing Amphetamine's BTW. Sorry forgot to even
| talk about that. Just lots of mania I would guess. Like right
| now, I have been kinda down and depressed all afternoon. It's
| now 6pm where I'm at, and I just had a switch go off, and now
| I'm full of energy and will probably end up coding till I
| drop. I'm my own worst enemy, I know.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Worrying about sleeping enough is certainly more detrimental to
| one's health and well-being than getting too little sleep.
| abledon wrote:
| nurses and doctors, the 'health' workers, and other erratic
| schedule-shifting shift workers... RIP
| gumby wrote:
| This is well known, and there is a movement to change this for
| residents, at least. So far nothing has changed.
|
| More proximally: the level of care you can receive / number of
| errors committed is seriously affected by the loss of sleep by
| your carer.
| slt2021 wrote:
| do investment bankers have dementia later in their lifes?
|
| i heard they work 9-5 (9am-5am next day)
| Tenoke wrote:
| ~6 hours or just above it in general seems to be the sweetspot.
| Most negative effects (especially broad ones like all-cause
| mortality) only really start showing up under 6 (or over 7
| hours)[0].
|
| Too bad the majority of reporting exaggerates and starts scaring
| people for going under 8 (and sometimes 9!) when yet again it
| seems like 6-7 is likely best, with very little 'loss' between 7
| and 6. Just don't go much lower than that for long unless you
| need exceptionally less.
|
| 0. https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/apnm-2020-0034
| balfirevic wrote:
| > Most negative effects (especially broad ones like all-cause
| mortality) only really start showing up under 6
|
| Most - maybe. But one very important negative effect is that
| waking up without enough sleep is, quite literally, torturous.
| fulafel wrote:
| Your linked consensus statement recommends against under 7 or
| over 9 hours, and says 7-8 is "most favourable".
| Tenoke wrote:
| I already edited and answered in another comment. The actual
| studies (especially large meta-analyses) show very good
| results between 6 and 7, I was just thinking of linking this
| for the overrecomendation of 8-9 and copied it by mistake.
|
| Though even here they try to reccomend more in the abstract
| than what their results suggest, so look at the actual
| results e.g. all-cause mortality.
| matwood wrote:
| Yeah, I naturally sleep around 7 hours. If I get < 6 I really
| notice it the next day. 6+ is a normal day. But it is weird
| just how much I notice going less than 6 though.
|
| Another thing that my wife hates (ie, is jealous of), is my
| head hits the pillow and I'm out. Also, during that 6 hour
| sweet spot, I can sleep through almost anything.
| serpix wrote:
| My dad is like this. Please tell me as I am curious, do you
| tend to self-reflect or have a vivid inner world? I'm trying
| to understand how my dad does this and my current theory is
| that he simply does not dwell on things and runs mostly on
| instinct.
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| Fwiw, I can also usually do this and I would consider
| myself a world class dweller.
|
| For me, it's about
|
| - consistent bedtime
|
| - doing as little as possible involving a screen in bed
|
| - consistent bedtime routine
|
| - consistent bedtime
|
| Screwing any of these up can quite easily cause me to start
| worrying about things instead of falling asleep.
|
| But I also think in part I'm just lucky and I can't really
| explain what causes it. I was always able to fall asleep in
| the car when I was younger, almost instantly. I can't fall
| asleep on public transport or planes at all though unless
| I'm really shattered.
| matwood wrote:
| I self reflect a lot, but don't dwell on things outside of
| my control. How an interaction with a co-worker went I
| might think about for days and even journal about, but I
| can't tell you what I read on HN yesterday unless it fit
| into something I'm working on.
|
| I exercise almost every day and have for over 20 years. It
| definitely helps.
|
| I do have a basic bedtime routine. I go to bed at a
| consistent time, but I don't avoid screens or anything. I
| do avoid games and any news type things when I'm winding
| down for bed, but will read and watch part (it's always a
| part b/c I'm asleep before it's over heh) of a show on my
| phone. Also, DnD kicks on about an hour before bed so a
| random work email doesn't derail me.
|
| Finally, if there is something I'm worried about I take
| care of it. This goes back to not dwelling on things
| outside of my control, and dealing with the things that
| are.
| cinntaile wrote:
| That's not what your source says though. The consensus is less
| than 7 hours has adverse health outcomes and more than 9 hours
| has an unknown effect for most people and is beneficial for
| certain groups of people.
| Tenoke wrote:
| My bad, I copied the wrong link (edited now). I meant to link
| to the largest systematic review I could find[0]. Instead I
| had linked to the US recommendation which I was initially
| thinking of linking for the part where most over-recommend
| 8-9.
|
| Relevant part:
|
| >that compared with 7 h of sleep per day, a 1-h decrease in
| sleep duration was associated with 6% increased risk of all-
| cause mortality and a 1-h increase in sleep duration was
| associated with a 13% increased risk of all-cause mortality
| (N = 241 107 adults in 43 articles).
|
| With again, the bigger effects being under 6 but even with an
| per-hour average the risk from 7 to 8 is higher than 7 to 6.
|
| 0. https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/apnm-2020-0034
| ineedasername wrote:
| Why assume lack of sleep is the cause? Why not reverse it, that
| dementia causes people to sleep less?
|
| The study makes it clear that it's an association. It never says
| it's an assertion of directional causality.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Typical mainstream click bait.
| [deleted]
| kazinator wrote:
| We must avoid using causal words like "raises" when a statistical
| relationship is found. To raise something is to cause something
| lower to become something higher.
|
| What the study found is that the pattern of sleeping less than
| six hours _is seen_ more in people who develop dementia.
|
| The study's own discussion states: "There is evidence of a
| bidirectional association between sleep dysfunction and
| pathophysiological changes in dementia{citations given},
| highlighting the need for a longer time frame in studies."
| sokoloff wrote:
| I always wonder about the direction of causality (if any) in
| these studies.
|
| I'm fortunate to mostly live without an alarm clock. I naturally
| get up before any scheduled activities, only early morning
| flights (previously) or EU time zone meetings require an alarm.
| Even without an alarm, I typically wake up feeling fully
| refreshed after 5-6 hours, rarely more than 7.
|
| If I end up with dementia (family history indicates likely), is
| the same root cause of dementia _causing_ the 5-6 hours of sleep
| now, the other way around, or neither?
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Not an expert. But if you're fully refreshed I think you're
| fine. Many people would take it, that's for sure. Research is
| useful. But nothing is more useful than listening to your own
| body. When something is wrong there are usually signs.
| k__ wrote:
| Good to know.
|
| Five years ago I stopped setting an alarm and now I get about
| 8-9h of sleep every night.
|
| Let's see how this plays out in the long run, haha.
| JCM9 wrote:
| There are lots of stories of the "I can work harder and longer
| than others because I require very little sleep" types having
| serious issues later in life. This study would seem to put some
| hard data behind this logic being a really bad idea for ones long
| term health and well being. The public discourse now seems to be
| shifting to one where "successful people prioritize sleep."
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| I think those people already have serious issues and are
| escaping them through working.
| carbocation wrote:
| In contrast, a quasi-causal analysis (via Mendelian
| randomization) found no causal effect of sleep duration on
| Alzheimer's risk.
|
| > _There was little evidence to support associations of increased
| sleep duration with ... Alzheimer 's disease risk [OR = 0.89 (95%
| CI = 0.67-1.18); P = 0.41]. _
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31062029/
| dmicah wrote:
| The study you cite isn't really in conflict with the parent
| study. They note that the number of individuals with
| Alzheimer's Disease in the study was too small to develop a
| non-linear model relating sleep duration to AD risk:
|
| Pg. 858:
|
| "Similarly, short and long sleep duration and poor sleep
| quality have also been linked with an increased risk of
| dementia. Although a similar J-shaped association was observed
| in our observational analysis, we were limited to performing
| only the linear MR analysis, as the non-linear MR method
| requires a large number of cases and individual-level data. In
| our linear MR analysis, we found no clear evidence that an
| increased sleep duration was associated with a higher risk of
| all-cause dementia in UK Biobank or with AD in IGAP. This is
| unsurprising, as the true association might be non-linear and
| we were limited with only 1343 dementia cases in UK Biobank.
| Also, IGAP does not capture non-AD dementia types and comprises
| an older and more heterogeneous population."
|
| "Results for risks of dementia and AD are still too imprecise
| to draw any definitive conclusions. Our findings suggest that,
| in clinical care, attention should be paid to sleep-duration
| patterns and improved sleep habits could represent a potential
| therapeutic target for cognition."
| carbocation wrote:
| It doesn't disprove the parent study, but it certainly is not
| supportive of some of the causal interpretations of the
| observational study.
| gumby wrote:
| There are other forms of dementia than Alzheimer's.
| carbocation wrote:
| Are there causal analyses of sleep on those other forms of
| dementia?
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I'm not well versed on different kinds of studies... could
| you explain the differences between "causal analysis" and
| whatever the study linked in the article is? They mention a
| longitudinal study and that the "finding was confirmed in
| analysis using sleep duration measured by an
| accelerometer."
|
| I assume a causal analysis would also determine the
| direction of the causality, e.g. if it turns out that
| people predisposed to dementia have more trouble sleeping
| in middle age. That definitely seems like a tall order and
| probably not exactly what the linked study can answer.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Accelerometers tell nothing about the actual sleep
| duration. Is this another one of that quack sleep
| doctor's "everyone needs 8 hours of sleep every night"
| studies?
| carbocation wrote:
| Correct, the study design in the original article cannot
| answer causal questions (although of course it can
| generate hypotheses). For example, if an omniscience
| informed us "actually, people lose sleep in middle age as
| a consequence of the early stages of dementia", that
| would make sense as well.
|
| The best causal analysis is interventional, but many
| times (such as in this case) it would be both extremely
| challenging and likely hard to do in any ethical fashion
| (I can't imagine how it could be done, but perhaps
| someone could).
|
| Short of that, you're left with instrumental variables.
| Genetics offers a very nice instrumental variable, since
| the causal arrow largely goes one way if you setup your
| study design carefully.
|
| That is generally performed as Mendelian randomization,
| which has several assumptions but, if met, has nice
| properties.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_randomization
| gumby wrote:
| Unfortunately such studies are very very hard to conduct
| and are never well powered
| zapita wrote:
| Alternative title: people without children have less risk of
| dementia.
| Jallpowawe wrote:
| After following nearly 8,000 people for 25 years, the study found
| a higher dementia risk with a "sleep duration of six hours or
| less at age 50 and 60" as compared to those who slept seven hours
| a night.
|
| In addition, persistent short sleep duration between the ages of
| 50, 60 and 70 was also associated with a "30% increased dementia
| risk," independent of "sociodemographic, behavioural,
| cardiometabolic, and mental health factors," including
| depression, the study said.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Many forms of dementia destroy dopaminergic neurons, and this
| process begins much earlier than symptoms of dementia itself
| manifest. From what I've gathered from reading studies across the
| years, less dopaminergic capacity seems to be associated with
| less restful sleep.
|
| The conclusions of this study seem to have it backwards. It's not
| lack of sleep that causes dementia, it's early dementia that
| causes insomnia.
|
| Edit: it's also possible that a third factor causes both of
| these. For example, both people low on dopamine and the sleep-
| deprived are likely to turn to coffee to keep them functional. If
| they drink too much coffee, they might accidentally poison
| themselves into dementia, because some of the Harmala alkaloids
| in coffee are neurotoxic and like to deposit themselves in brain
| fatty tissues for a long time.
| gundmc wrote:
| Coffee causing dementia is a pretty shocking claim that I
| haven't heard previously. Do you have more reading on this?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I've always wondered if coffee studies are just something
| they give bored grad students to do. I've heard about what
| seems like hundreds of them in my lifetime and they
| contradict each other in cycles over long stretches of time.
| crocsarecool wrote:
| Same! One week it's terrible for you. The next week it's
| curing cancer. I just try not to have any past a certain
| hour so as to not interrupt my sleep.
| ineedasername wrote:
| The behavior of drinking coffee or not is also very
| socially mediated-- portrayal of coffee drinkers in movies,
| coffee as a common activity for preliminary dates, or to
| meet someone new at a cafe...
|
| All of this means that coffee drinkers are going to self
| select for various other features that add confounding
| factors. Imagine you were doing a study on marriage
| patterns: I wouldn't be surprised if "Drinks their coffee
| in the cafe itself" was more highly associated with being
| single. And the headline will read "Dedicated coffee
| drinkers less likely to find a partner"
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| There's something in (1), but it doesn't address the entire
| spectrum of Harmala alkaloid neurotoxicity (2) (3). It has
| been shown that heterocyclic aromatic amines (which Harmala
| alkaloids belong to) indeed damage dopaminergic neurons (4).
|
| (1): https://hammer.purdue.edu/articles/thesis/Identification
| _of_... (2):
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ijc.20703
| (3): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S15700
| 2320... (4): https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article-
| abstract/173/1/171/5...
| tartoran wrote:
| The OP doesn't suggest that coffee may cause dementia but was a
| possibility for sleep deprived and low on dopamine individuals
| drinking too much coffee to stay functional, exacerbating their
| sleep deprivation thus rising the prospects of developing
| dementia.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| No, I was explicitly suggesting that neurotoxic amines in
| coffee may be building up in some, possibly genetically
| predisposed heavy coffee drinkers, causing loss of
| dopaminergic neurons and ultimately dementia, or other
| neurological disorders.
|
| This exact mechanism has been shown to be the cause of a very
| common neurological disorder called essential tremor.
| Patients have a genetic predisposition for building up
| tremor-inducing Harmala alkaloids due to reduced metabolism.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20182054/#:~:text=In%20the%2...
| .
|
| this says coffee is associated with a reduced risk of dementia
| which is pretty much what I've read over and over again
| eloff wrote:
| Thank you! I was freaking out about my beloved coffee
| addiction.
| zikzak wrote:
| Never blame the coffee.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| That study conflates caffeine and coffee from the very first
| word in the abstract. I wouldn't trust it at all -- it's like
| an article about CPUs but the writer doesn't understand the
| difference between a processor (called CPU) and the rest of
| the stuff in the computer case (which, as a whole, is also
| called CPU).
| jiofih wrote:
| Please don't upvote this nonsense. Harmala alkaloids are found
| in tobacco, not coffee.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| They are found in both, in high concentrations. Tobacco smoke
| and coffee are the two most significant sources of Harmala
| alkaloids in the human diet. (Source: T. Herraiz)
| guerrilla wrote:
| I'm pretty sure harmine and harmaline are found in coffee
| too. I thought it was common knowledge but all I found were
| two papers so maybe not.
|
| 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002
| 43...
|
| 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030
| 88...
| ckosidows wrote:
| Just coffee or anything with caffeine?
|
| I'm really curious for a source on this, considering how much
| coffee I drink weekly.
| pvarangot wrote:
| If caffeine does it for you and need lots of it, eating just
| caffeine is probably safer than drinking a lot of coffee.
| Coffee beans have a lot of of other stuff and it varies from
| bean to bean and eating a lot of some of that stuff may not
| be good for your gut/brain/whatever.
|
| If you are "addicted" to coffee sometimes you will crave it
| if you do just caffeine, but this goes away after a while.
|
| Be aware also that if you want the antioxidants and other
| stuff in coffee beans eating just caffeine won't give you
| that.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| There's really no evidence that antioxidants are
| categorically good for you. Studies have found that some
| benefits of exercise are mediated through oxidative stress,
| and get impaired by antioxidant intake.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Just coffee. You may have a MAOA VNTR that predisposes you to
| like coffee.
| ineedasername wrote:
| In fairness to the study, it's only claiming an association,
| not a causal link.
| chubot wrote:
| I agree you have to examine both directions, and a common
| cause, but the article somewhat addresses that under "chicken
| or egg?" The headline is misleading.
|
| Big idea: a common cause may be jaw development and the
| resulting lack of breathing (during the day and during sleep)
| in large parts of the population.
|
| Jaw development has a strong claim to be the fundamental,
| common cause of poor breathing and sleep because it's derived
| from 2 fundamental differences between humans and animals:
| agriculture and speech.
|
| It's a long chain of causation, and took me awhile to learn
| about, but it may be what you're looking for.
|
| Of course it could also be the case that some people are just
| staring at screens too much before bed and getting poor sleep.
| But bad sleep is an epidemic and there is evidence of this all
| over the world, and going back hundreds of years. The books I
| reference tell of orthodontists from the 1800's who noticed
| this problem, etc. Our diets drastically changed, which caused
| poor jaw development, which causes bad breathing, which causes
| bad sleep (I learned about this from my dentist).
|
| There are many factors that restrict airways, including weight.
| Remember that the average American male is about 30 pounds
| heavier in 2020 than in 1960 (and similarly for females). It's
| hard to imagine that not having an effect of breathing and
| sleep (and thus dementia). But I think animals can be fat and
| still have plenty of air for breathing; the same isn't true for
| humans.
|
| Previous comment I wrote on this including recent books
| (2018-2020): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435964
|
| That article is "fitful nightly sleep linked to chronic
| inflammation and hardened arteries". That is another
| correlation, not a causation. So I would suggest that bad
| sleep, inflammation, hardened arteries, and dementia have a
| common cause in jaw and airway development. This is a lot
| harder to see because it took place over 10,000 years and it
| takes 30-50 years to kill you. You can have bad breathing your
| whole life but still be functional. It's very related to tooth
| grinding/bruxism, which is an epidemic as well.
|
| Other threads on Hacker News:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24247066
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| > it's early dementia that causes insomnia
|
| > If they drink too much coffee, they might accidentally poison
| themselves into dementia
|
| Oh crap
| didibus wrote:
| I wouldn't take anyone making a comment on HN a source of
| accurate and truthful data. The HN bias can be at play. Which
| is the bias that we believe and trust a random comment on
| Hacker News more than a linked research study, or the body of
| experts around a subject (who don't comment on Hacker News).
| The_rationalist wrote:
| Melatonin intake (300 mcg) is useful for falling asleep faster.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| "However, this study cannot establish cause and effect" is the
| only part of this article that matters, and it demonstrates the
| ineptitude of the article writer.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| As people age and that their brains change, many end up
| sleeping less automatically, so it could be a common cause for
| both
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Yeah, the headline isn't a conclusion that can be drawn from
| the study, and is guaranteed to mislead most people who come
| across it. Shame.
| senux wrote:
| I agree. This sort of article is partly the reason why we so
| often here something like "science can't make up its mind" or
| "x is good now but was bad before, and will be bad again soon".
|
| Instead of sharing accurate information about the findings of
| these researchers, news organizations use them to write catchy,
| clickbait-y articles. Needless to say, researchers are often to
| blame as well, since they participate in interviews using vague
| language so that they can benefit from the exposure, well aware
| of the repercussions of their behavior.
|
| This issue goes beyond just researchers and news organizations,
| though. There have been plenty of discussions here in HN and
| other places about how scientific research is somewhat broken
| due to how it rewards quantity versus quality for example.
| zarq wrote:
| It's really hard to fight this though, because it may take
| many years, even decades, to thoroughly answer a follow-up
| question. By then, everyone has forgotten about the original
| reason something got published.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| > researchers are often to blame as well, since they
| participate in interviews using vague language so that they
| can benefit from the exposure, well aware of the
| repercussions of their behavior.
|
| I would also add that like everything in life, there's a
| large distribution of researchers. Some do poor research.
| This is true for all fields. One example is when a researcher
| has an hypothesis in mind which they try to force even if the
| results don't really support it. Doing great science is hard
| and researchers in the end have pressure to publish papers.
| busyant wrote:
| > Needless to say, researchers are often to blame as well,
| since they participate in interviews using vague language so
| that they can benefit from the exposure, well aware of the
| repercussions of their behavior.
|
| Universities also have PR departments that tout their faculty
| research. I imagine these PR groups contribute to the hype.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| get some sleep
| coding123 wrote:
| I will when I finish just one more zombie night in 7 days to
| die. Just one more I promise.
| roguson wrote:
| This article makes me question my time management ability. I
| should tweak it so I can't make the chances worse. I guess I'll
| sleep right now.
| gyrgtyn wrote:
| This just stresses me out about sleeping even more and makes
| sleeping harder than it already is.
| paultopia wrote:
| I really hate these kinds of news stories. It's like: yes, here
| are some more ways that not getting enough sleep will kill you.
| Add dementia to weight gain, worsened immune function, etc. etc.
| Gee, let's all call the Magic Sleep Fairy and ask her to make it
| possible to sleep longer, as if jobs, family members, noisy
| neighbors, and all the rest of actual pieces of human existence
| that make adequate sleep impossible for many of us don't exist.
| irrational wrote:
| So, anyone with kids is probably going to have dementia?
| emteycz wrote:
| Usually parents can't sleep well only for a year at most, even
| 6 months old children are sleeping whole nights.
| ihaveajob wrote:
| My coffee addiction says otherwise :).
|
| YMMV but kids have their hangups and it's often not possible
| to negotiate rationally. They also regress (this past year
| has been terrible, with no school for extended periods,
| staying at grandma's every couple of weeks so parents can get
| work done...), and you're back to square one.
|
| Ours are 2 and 5, and I haven't slept in on a Saturday
| morning since 2015.
| growt wrote:
| That's just half of the picture. My kids are older but they
| have a talent to get up at 6 in the morning on weekends. And
| need to get up at similar times for school during the week.
| stagger87 wrote:
| If you have kids getting up at 6 for school and you haven't
| adjusted your sleep schedule to match, isn't that kind of
| on you now?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| How does one do this? Parents get up at 6 to get their
| kids ready for school. Then take the kids to school,
| shower, have breakfast and then work until 6. Picking up
| the kids at some point in there. Then make dinner, family
| time and then kids go to bed at 8 or 9. Now you have the
| option of going right to sleep which is fine if you
| desire no personal time / partner time. But if you have
| your own hobbies or goals then you spend a couple hours
| on those and bang you are sleep deprived.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| It's all about priorities, time management, efficiency,
| and sharing the load.
|
| If you want to have both parents working, stay late at
| the office, have both parents involved with kids for
| every activity, and also work on side projects late at
| night, you're going to struggle until the kids are more
| self sufficient.
|
| Even without kids, waking up at 6AM, hustling through
| morning routines and to the office, working to 6PM and
| then getting home at 6:30PM (assuming commute) leaves
| about 3.5 hours of free time and 8 hours for sleep. If
| you're trying to shoe-horn involved hobbies and side
| projects into those weekdays, something has to give
| regardless of whether or not you have kids.
|
| The standard parent learning curve usually involves:
| Becoming more efficient with your routines, becoming more
| efficient with time management at the office, learning to
| say no to unnecessary requests, pushing back on jobs that
| demand long hours (or changing jobs to a more reasonable
| 8-hour workday company), becoming more efficient with
| meals and grocery shopping, doing more tradeoff load
| sharing with partner instead of both people being
| involved in everything, and letting kids have more
| independent play time as they age.
|
| That said, you simply won't have as much alone time with
| kids in the equation. If you're trying to do too much,
| you have to sacrifice somewhere. It's better to do a few
| things well than to try to do everything at 75%
| commitment or being 75% awake.
| SethMurphy wrote:
| As a parent I need both my own down time and time alone
| with my spouse to feel mentally healthy too, and that is
| usually after they are in bed and asleep. Maybe more than
| 6 hours is easy, but it's usually less than 8 if I manage
| to do all my normal expected activities. Often I do sleep
| instead now though as I quickly realized my temperament
| is only agreeable with enough of it as I age, and the
| other things I need to do suffer. Others may not make the
| same choice, and it's not a wrong to prioritize other
| important aspects of mental and physical well being.
| gumby wrote:
| Then in their teens they may sleep 10 hours a day but that's
| the _only_ time you 're not worried.
| hpoe wrote:
| You say that. I too believed as you did. I looked for the
| joyous day when I could sleep through the night with our
| first and second and third.
|
| But it turns out toddlers will get up in the night and ask
| you to tuck them back in, they will get up because they had a
| scary dream, because they can't find their stuffed animal,
| and don't get me started on night terrors.
|
| The point is I don't think this tracks.
|
| I don't think I've had a solid week of uninterrupted sleep
| since our first came home.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Night terrors are not remotely normal. They are a fairly
| uncommon and extreme sleep issue.
|
| My experience/understanding: Very bright kids get night
| terrors when you make sure they are physically tired enough
| to sleep but fail to make sure they are mentally tired
| enough to sleep. You need both to sleep deeply and bright
| kids who can't yet read have trouble reaching a state of
| being adequately mentally tired.
|
| I suggest you join some parenting lists for people
| suffering from having made the mistake if giving birth to
| bright kids. Tagfam.org is probably still a good place to
| begin trying to find support resources and reliable info.
|
| Edit: Bright kids are known to be prone to a variety of
| sleep issues. I spent twelve years arranging every minute
| of every day to make sleep feasible for one of my kids.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Ha! This is not my lived experience at all nor of my friend-
| group. My older kid, 5, mostly sleeps fine now, but both he
| and his sibling had middle-of-night issues well into their
| 2s. Even now, if one of my kids wakes (sometimes many hours
| before I would choose to wake, sometimes due to things like
| bed wetting), I'm not going to be finishing my nights sleep,
| and even if I did, the quality is simply lower.
|
| Pre-6 months, we're talking about a zombie lifestyle where
| there is no "sleeping at night," just sleeping between
| feedings.
|
| I acknowledge there are definitely both cultural and
| hereditary elements to this, but your comment is so starkly
| different from my experience and the experience of my
| friends.
| irrational wrote:
| That's not my experience at all. My oldest woke up screaming
| with nightmares every night until she was 7 years old. That
| was 7 solid years of my not sleeping through the night.
| pvarangot wrote:
| So mid-life in this study is 50 to 60, if you have kids at 35
| by that age your kids are probably not affecting your sleep
| schedule. I coudn't find out if the study found a correlation
| with younger patients sleeping 6 vs. 7 hours.
|
| Also they are at 30% higher risk of something that is already
| kinda unlikely for most of the population if you follow a
| healthy lifestyle. Most of the research points towards vascular
| disease being the most important indicator of heightened
| dementia risk on an otherwise healthy population, and this
| study only controlled for severe vascular disease like having
| had a stroke or infarction.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Not doubting anyone's personal experience, but to add another
| anecdotal data point:
|
| Kids weren't as disruptive to sleep as I expected after reading
| horror stories online. The way the internet talks about child
| raising sometimes makes it feel like martyrdom, but the
| internet tends to focus on worst-case stories and people
| venting about uniquely bad situations. It's almost taboo to
| share positive stories when other parents are sharing their
| struggles, so most conversations veer toward discussions from
| parents who are struggling the most while other parents keep
| quiet. I've found it helpful to identify parents who are doing
| well and specifically ask them what they're doing, because most
| parents are too polite to tell others how to raise their kids.
|
| There are always edge cases and every child is different, so of
| course we should all be considerate of other parents and cut
| them slack and/or provide assistance when they are struggling.
|
| However, I and most of my friends have had good results with
| combinations of sleep training and adjusting our own sleep
| schedules for additional buffer. The key for me was to go to
| bed an hour earlier than normal. If I get interrupted in the
| middle of the night, I use that extra hour to sleep in. If I
| don't get interrupted (most common case) I simply wake up an
| hour earlier than normal. It doesn't cover every night and
| every situation, but it fits most nights.
| everfraid wrote:
| I'd love to go to sleep an hour earlier, but my 3year old is
| not asleep at that time :) And he wakes up at 5, so that's
| great. Maybe when he start skipping his midday nap, we'll
| start to get some more sleep. Until then, it's dementia I
| guess.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The kid still sleeps more than you need over the whole day;
| so you "just" need to take midday naps as well.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Same experience here. We were lucky and with just a few
| adjustments are being able to cope quite well. It does
| require for me and my partner to go to bed earlier to have
| more of our sleep overlap with baby's, otherwise it'd be
| hell. But at the same time we get up earlier, too.
| intergalplan wrote:
| > However, I and most of my friends have had good results
| with combinations of sleep training and adjusting our own
| sleep schedules for additional buffer.
|
| Bingo. Also don't insist on both being awake for every
| nighttime wake period and use a shift system, plus offset
| your go-to-bed times, and then, unless you're _very_ unlucky
| or your newborn has some kind of illness, you 're looking at
| 6ish hours of sleep a night with at least one night a week of
| 8+ hours (when you can each give the other a "sleep make-up
| night" to sleep in basically indefinitely, probably on a
| weekend).
|
| Sleep train right, and you're gonna be doing this for 3
| months, tops. They should be down to one feeding a night
| around IIRC 1 month, so it gets way better then.
|
| 3 for 3 on having our kids sleeping through the night (as in,
| we only have to wake up and do something if there's an
| unusual situation, and aren't woken up at all at least 6
| weeks a night) by no later than 10 weeks. I believe some
| people do get unlucky and their kids just _won 't_ sleep
| through the night that early, but it's _quite_ rare (again,
| unless your kid 's sick, that changes everything).
|
| Everyone we see having trouble with it is one or more of:
|
| 1) keeping their kid in the same room or same bed (no
| judgement on co-sleeping for other reasons, but continuing it
| past the first couple weeks seems, anecdotally, strongly
| correlated with kids who still won't sleep through the night
| at 6 months and beyond, and have trouble going to sleep in
| the first place),
|
| 2) pouncing on their baby the second they make a sound at
| night, even past the first couple weeks, at which point you
| should _stop_ that and gradually increase your response times
| to waking /crying unless you want to _train_ your kid to wake
| up a lot (by rewarding waking with attention, and not letting
| them learn how to transition between sleep cycles),
|
| 3) unable to handle "cry it out" for the 2-3 nights it'll
| probably take to finish the process, if you've followed the
| steps you should have to correctly reduce how often they wake
| by ~8 weeks or so (if you haven't, it might take a lot
| longer, but... just don't do that)
| bredren wrote:
| I'm expecting my first child in June and have sort of been
| preparing for misery when it comes to sleep. I appreciate you
| sharing this.
| cpach wrote:
| It can be rough. But it isn't rough for all parents all the
| time. And keep this in mind: A period of bad sleep could be
| followed by a period of good sleep. Kids aren't static,
| their behavior can vary a lot during different development
| stages.
|
| Best of luck!
| bredren wrote:
| Thank you.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Whatever happens, know that it's ultimately not only up to
| you. There's quite a bit of luck involved how they are able
| to cope with the environment and what sleep pattern they
| prefer.
|
| And OT but relevant for every new parent, sorry for giving
| unsolicited advice. But always remember, whenever it gets
| tough: "They're not giving you a hard time, they're having
| a hard time!". That helped me better understand that it's
| our job to help them through whatever crazy thing they're
| going through at any given time.
| bredren wrote:
| Thanks for this, it is the first time I've shared this
| here.
|
| This perspective is useful. We have a cat that sometimes
| does stuff we wish he wouldn't and now when unexpected
| stuff happens I've come to realize it means something is
| bothering him, rather than be frustrated by him.
|
| Hopefully that translates.
| david422 wrote:
| Good luck bud. Better to be prepared for misery just in
| case.
| bredren wrote:
| I'm trying to treat it like Burning Man. Where if it's
| your first time going, you go in with no expectations and
| as much preparedness as possible.
| werdnapk wrote:
| 3 kids in, aged 6, 4 and 2... 12 hours a night for all of
| them. I guess I did the "sleep training" thing, although
| all I did was what I thought was common sense stuff.
|
| Some things I did off the top of my head:
|
| - 15 min cry buffer. More than that and check diaper, or
| give a bottle/feeding. Never turn on the lights during
| these check-in times... always use a dim (soft colored
| light) night light that's already on to keep things "dark".
| Changing diapers with little light gets easier the more you
| do it.
|
| - Burping a newborn/baby is an essential technique. Don't
| leave the feeding until you get a good burp out of them.
| More often than not if the diaper is clean and they're fed,
| and they keep crying, it's trapped air that needs to be
| burped out.
|
| - I use a sound machine with white noise which drowns out
| almost all external noises.
|
| - No soothers. I let me kids figure out where their thumbs
| are and they use that. Too many times with my first kid I
| was going in to pick up the soother that dropped out of
| their mouth which made them cry.
|
| - Keep their room "cool". Nobody likes sweating in their
| sleep.
|
| A newborn will be waking up every 2-3 hours likely, but so
| far for me, by 3-5 months, the kids get to 12 hours.
|
| Side note, I'm the father of the kids. Breastfeeding was
| not done by me, so I'd bottle feed from pumped milk.
|
| Good luck!
| bredren wrote:
| Thank you for these specific points of advice.
| obelos wrote:
| We co-slept with our kids until they were 3-ish. Made sleeping
| a pleasant experience for everyone involved.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| If you are 5%-8% likely to get dementia as a baseline, but
| don't sleep enough, you're now 6.5%-10.5% likely to get
| dementia.
|
| Out of 1000 people who live to be over 70 and sleep properly,
| ~65 of them get dementia.
|
| Out of another 1000 people who live to be over 70 and sleep
| improperly, ~80 of them get dementia.
|
| So an extra 15 people out of 1000 get dementia in the "sleep
| improperly" group.
|
| Someone please check my application of natural frequencies!
| pc86 wrote:
| They paradoxically define "midlife" as "50s and 60s" so for
| most people, no.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Yeah, that seems kind of silly to me as well. I don't claim
| to speak for them, but what I think the researchers were
| getting at was "right before Alzheimer's symptoms typically
| appear," including mild cognitive impairment.
| PeterisP wrote:
| IIRC there are studies that parenting small kids (not to those
| giving birth but to those actually raising infants) cuts off
| 1-2 years of expected lifespan, presumably due to the
| associated sleep disturbances.
| fish45 wrote:
| More accurately, middle aged people who get less than 6 hours of
| sleep a night are 30% more likely to get dementia.
|
| I'd expect that people who get less than 6 hours of sleep are
| also more stressed and less health concious though.
| CerealFounder wrote:
| This guy infers. This seems like a tough study given the
| correlation factors.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Sure, I'd agree with the "more stressed and less health
| conscious" bit. But, the article does give some good reasons to
| suggest that either midlife insomnia is a very early symptom of
| dementia, or that sleep deprivation itself leads to dementia.
|
| Nonetheless, we are talking about people who have pre-existing
| insomnia before being diagnosed with dementia. According to the
| Mayo Clinic[0], the most common causes of insomnia are:
|
| * Stress.
|
| * Disrupted circadian rhythms due to shift work or frequent
| travel.
|
| * Poor sleep habits.
|
| * Eating too much late in the day.
|
| Further down the list are:
|
| * Anxiety disorders.
|
| * Medications.
|
| * Other medical conditions.
|
| * Sleep disorders.
|
| * Caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol.
|
| * Age (older people sleep less than younger people).
|
| Of these, anxiety disorders; sleep disorders; and caffeine,
| nicotine, and alcohol seem the most interesting to me. Anxiety
| disorders probably have an effect much like that of chronic
| stress, except that simple chronic stress generally goes away
| eventually. Sleep disorders seem interesting because we have
| some evidence that sleep serves a function related to brain
| health, but, really, we don't know exactly _what_ sleep does
| for us. And, alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine are interesting
| because the former two carry their own, independent health
| risks. Caffeine is interesting because, of course, it is active
| in the central nervous system, and it actually shows some
| limited evidence for a _protective_ effect against Alzheimer 's
| disease. [1]
|
| Cross referencing that with the list of things they control for
| ("age (timescale), sex, ethnicity, education, marital status,
| alcohol consumption, physical activity, smoking status, fruit
| and vegetable consumption, BMI, hypertension, diabetes,
| cardiovascular disease, GHQ depression, and CNS medications"),
| we can (lightly) cross age, nicotine, and alcohol off the list
| of interesting things.
|
| All this makes me wonder if either insomnia is an early
| dementia symptom, as they suggest, or if one of the causes of
| insomnia is the instigating factor. And, it seems to me the
| most interesting causal factors for insomnia left on the board
| are anxiety and stress.
|
| Oh, and guess what? Anxiety, stress, and PTSD have been
| independently linked to the development of dementia! [2]
|
| To me, _that_ 's interesting because anxiety is known to impair
| both working memory and cognitive processes[3], things which
| are both impaired in dementia.
|
| I don't mean to suggest that anxiety and stress cause dementia
| all by themselves, but I do think this might point to a more
| significant role for anxiety and stress than is typically
| considered these days.
|
| Anyway, these are just some idle thoughts from someone who is
| neither a doctor, neuroscientist, nor biological researcher of
| any kind. If anyone has anything else to add, or would care to
| riff off this, I'd love to see it. ---
|
| [0]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
| conditions/insomnia/symp...
|
| [1]: https://content.iospress.com/download/journal-of-
| alzheimers-...
|
| [2]: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/there-link-between-
| stress...
|
| [3]: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-fear-and-
| hat...
| kazinator wrote:
| That's not more accurately at all; you're still insinuating a
| causal relationship.
|
| "More accurately, people with yellow-stained fingertips are
| more likely to get lung cancer."
|
| The actual study's own title puts it more accurately:
|
| "Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with
| incidence of dementia"
| fish45 wrote:
| I don't think it insinuates a causal relationship.
|
| I interpret "30% more likely" as the same as "associated with
| a 30% increase," which is what the article claims.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| I would say that "People who do X are 30% more likely to
| get X" is commonly understood to imply causation.
| ziml77 wrote:
| How would you phrase it? Because I did not read that as
| meaning that less sleep caused dementia.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Reverse causation not ruled out. Typically useless study within
| this field where no real progress has been made in years.
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