Can insufficient sleep increase the chance of developing a common cold?
A thread 🧵👇
#sleep #sick #insomnia
Poor sleep is associated with susceptibility to acute infectious illness. In addition, sleep deprivation has been shown to negatively affect immune system functioning. Does this mean that you have a higher chance of getting sick when getting insufficient sleep?
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This study investigated whether sleep duration affects the development of the common cold. Sleep duration was objectively measured for 7 days/nights with a sleep watch.
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Afterward, subjects were exposed to a virus (rhinovirus 39) to induce a common cold and isolated in a hotel for 6 days to be monitored by the study team.
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Subjects with the shortest sleep duration (less than 5 hours) were most likely to develop a common cold after exposure to the virus (45% of subjects in this group).
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The incidence of the common cold decreased with increasing sleep duration: 30% for 5-6 hours, 23 % for 6-7 hours, and 17% for more than 7 hours.
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Note that these results were statistically corrected for many other factors that are known to affect susceptibility to the common cold such as age, physical activity, and perceived stress.
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These findings demonstrate that individuals who sleep more may have a lower risk of getting the common cold. However, the study was observational and cannot prove cause-and-effect.
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Ideally, these findings would be confirmed in an intervention study where increasing the sleep duration of an individual decreases their susceptibility to the common cold decreases.
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In conclusion, the chance of developing a common cold after exposure to a virus is greater when getting insufficient sleep.
Study:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26118561/
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