Hanna Webster | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)
PITTSBURGH — A study published last month in the journal Sleep Health found that regular napping is linked to larger brain volume and could indicate anti-aging properties of napping.
While past research looked at people’s brains and sleep habits and made correlations, this study — with global collaboration including Harvard Medical School — took it one step further in analyzing participants’ genes to locate specific traits associated with napping. The Allegheny Health Network Center for Sleep Medicine thinks it’s a step in the right direction for learning more about sleep and cognition.
It is estimated that one in three U.S. adults does not get adequate sleep (an average 7 to 8 hours a night), and that around 18% of Americans have a sleep disorder. Teens need more sleep than adults, to accommodate a developing brain. Chronic poor sleep can decrease immune function and increase risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and other health conditions.
However, power naps — characterized as an intentional 15- to 30-minute nap, typically in the afternoon — can temporarily relieve the burden of a sleep deficit, and some studies have shown they have benefits for cognition.
The new study’s researchers asked people aged 40 to 69 about their power-napping habits: Did they nap regularly, sometimes or rarely? They then combed through participants’ genomes to find similarities. The study sample came from more than 300,000 people who had registered with the UK Biobank, a vast consortium of participant genetic and medical data. The National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program, of which Pitt is a partner, is a similar cohort-based program but said it does not yet have the data to conduct a similar study, an NIH spokesperson said.
In those who napped regularly, they found specific genes consistent across the cohort that were associated with napping behavior, suggesting that some sleep habits are…
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