Less Sleep During Teens Increases Risk of Multiple Sclerosis

Getting adequate restorative sleep while you are young may help you avoid multiple sclerosis, revealed a new study.

Highlights:

Teenagers who receive less than 7 hours of sleep every night have an increased risk of acquiring multiple sclerosis (MS) as adults
Also, kids who have poor sleep habits are more likely to develop MS
This supports earlier research that links sleep and other lifestyle factors to the risk of MS

Inadequate and disrupted sleep throughout adolescence may increase the chance of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), according to case-control research published online in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.

According to the experts, getting adequate restorative sleep while you are young may help you avoid the illness.

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‘People who reported receiving less than 7 hours of sleep between the ages of 15 and 19 had a 40% higher risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) than those who got 7 to 9 hours of sleep regularly.’

What is Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

MS is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors such as smoking, adolescent weight (BMI), Epstein-Barr virus infection, sun exposure, and vitamin D.

Shift employment has also been related to an increased risk of the illness, particularly in children, but whether sleep patterns- duration, body clock disruption, and sleep quality- might alter this risk has yet to be determined, they note.

To investigate this further, the researchers drew on the Epidemiological Investigation of Multiple Sclerosis (EIMS), a population-based case-control study of 16-70-year-old Swedish citizens.

Between 2005 and 2013 and 2015 and 2018, patients with MS were recruited from the hospital and privately owned neurology clinics and matched for age, gender, and residence area with two healthy people randomly picked from the national population registry.

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Sleep Habits of Adolescents Linked with Diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis

The researchers concentrated on sleep habits between the ages of 15 and 19, and the final analysis comprised 2075 participants with MS and 3164 people without the condition who were recruited to the study at this age.

Participants were asked about their sleeping habits at various ages, including length of sleep on work or school days, weekends, and free days.

Short sleep was defined as sleeping for fewer than 7 hours per night, sufficient sleep as sleeping for 7-9 hours, and long sleep as sleeping for 10 hours or more.

During the teen years of 15-19, sleep schedule differences between work/school days and weekend/free days were calculated and classified as less than 1 hour/night, 1-3 hours, and more than 3 hours.

Participants in the study were also asked to rate their sleep quality at various ages on a 5-point scale, with 5 equaling extremely good.

The average age of diagnosis for MS was 34. Sleep duration and quality throughout adolescence were linked to an elevated chance of MS diagnosis, which rose in tandem with fewer hours and lower-quality sleep.

After controlling for a variety of potentially significant characteristics, such as BMI at age 20 and smoking, little sleep was related to a 40% increased chance of getting MS compared to sleeping 7-9 hours per night throughout adolescence.

Long sleep, however, was not linked to an increased risk of MS, even on weekends or off days. Similarly, poor sleep quality during this period was related to a 50% increased risk of acquiring the illness. Sleep schedule differences between work/school days and weekends/free days did not appear to be significant.

When shift workers were eliminated, the results remained consistent.

The researchers warn that their findings should be interpreted with caution due to the possibility of reverse causation, in which poor sleep could be caused by neurological injury rather than the other way around.

They do, however, remind out that insufficient and poor quality sleep is known to influence immunological pathways and inflammatory signaling, and that the body clock is also important in regulating the immune response.

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Sleep Disturbances in Teenagers

Inadequate or disrupted sleep is frequent among teenagers, which they argue is explained in part by physiological, psychological, and social changes throughout this age range.

“Associations have also been demonstrated between social media use and sleep patterns. Availability of technology and internet access at any time contributes to insufficient sleep among adolescents and represents an important public health issue,” they add. “Educational interventions addressed to adolescents and their parents regarding the negative health consequences of insufficient sleep are of importance.”

And they conclude: “Insufficient sleep and low sleep quality during adolescence seem to increase the risk of subsequently developing MS. Sufficient restorative sleep, needed for adequate immune functioning, may thus be another preventive factor against MS.”

Source-Medindia

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