2023-10-20 11:45:22
Consistently sleeping less than five hours each night could increase the risk of developing depressive symptoms, according to a study. genetic study led by researchers from University College London (UCL, in the United Kingdom).
The work, published in the magazine Translational Psychiatryanalyzed data from people with a average age 65 years and has revealed that little sleep is associated with the appearance of depressive symptoms.
This genetic study reveals that little sleep is associated with the appearance of depressive symptoms
Poor sleep has historically been considered a side effect of poor mental health, but this research found that the link between sleep and mental illness is more complex.
“We have this chicken-and-egg scenario between suboptimal sleep duration and depression,” he says. Odessa S. Hamilton, author of the work. “And using genetic susceptibility to the disease, we determined that sleep is likely to precede depressive symptoms, rather than the other way around.”
By studying genetic susceptibility to the disease, it is likely that sleep precedes depressive symptoms, rather than the other way around.
Odessa S. Hamilton (UCL)
The researchers used genetic and health data from 7.146 personas recruited into the ELSA Longitudinal Aging Study, a nationally representative population-based report in England.
Genetic predisposition to sleep little
The team assessed the strength of genetic predisposition among participants, using results from previous genome-wide association research that had already identified thousands of genetic variants linked to a greater likelihood of developing depression and short (less than 5-6 hours per night) or long (more than 8-10 hours) sleep.
They found that people with a greater genetic predisposition to sleep little (less than five hours a night) were more likely to develop depressive symptoms within 4-12 years.
People with a greater genetic predisposition to sleep less than five hours a night were more likely to develop depressive symptoms in 4-12 years
However, people with a greater genetic predisposition to depression were not more likely to have poor sleep.
In the words of Olesya Ajnakinaalso from UCL, “short and long sleep duration, along with depression, are factors that contribute greatly to the public health burden and are highly heritable.”
“Polygenic scores, indices of an individual’s genetic propensity for a trait, are considered key to beginning to understand the nature of sleep duration and depressive symptoms,” he notes.
For another of the authors, Andrew Steptoe“Suboptimal sleep and depression increase with age, and with the global phenomenon of population aging there is a growing need to better understand the mechanism connecting depression.”
“This study lays an important foundation for future research on the intersection of genetics, sleep and depressive symptoms,” he emphasizes.
Association with excessive sleeping
On the other hand, and in another non-genetic analysisthe researchers also revealed a link between sleeping a lot and developing depressive symptoms: participants who slept more than nine hours were 1.5 times more likely to develop depressive symptoms than those who slept an average of seven hours.
Fuente: EFE/UCL
Rights: Creative Commons.
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