March 15 (UPI) —<\/span> Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco have identified genes that help some people are get a better night’s sleep, even in less time, and these genes may protect them from brain diseases, including dementia, they said in a study published Tuesday by the journal iScience.<\/p>\n In experiments conducted in mice, “elite sleepers” appear to have increased psychological resilience and resistance to neurodegenerative conditions, the researchers said.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n The findings could provide clues toward ways for preventing neurological diseases that range from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s, they said.<\/p>\n “There’s a dogma in the field that everyone needs eight hours of sleep, but our work to date confirms that the amount of sleep people need differs based on genetics,” study co-author Dr. Louis Ptacek said in a press release.\n<\/p>\n “Think of it as analogous to height — there’s no perfect amount of height, each person is different [and] we’ve shown that the case is similar for sleep,” said Ptacek, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco.\n<\/p>\n Some people have what is called Familial Natural Short Sleep, or the ability to function fully on, and prefer, four to six hours of sleep a night, according to Ptacek and his colleagues.<\/p>\n In people with Familial Natural Short Sleep, the brain accomplishes its sleep tasks in less time, meaning less time spent efficiently sleeping may not equate to a lack of sleep, the researchers said.\n<\/p>\n Over more than a decade of research, they have shown that this tendency runs in families, and they have identified five genes that help those with it have more efficient sleep, they said.<\/p>\n Previous research has linked poor sleep quality — or less restful, sound sleep — with an increased risk for dementia, perhaps due to levels of a protein that appear to fluctuate with the sleep-wake cycle.<\/p>\n “Sleep problems are common in all diseases of the brain,” study co-author Ying-Hui Fu said in the press release.\n<\/p>\n “This makes sense because sleep is a complex activity [and] many parts of your brain have to work together for you to fall asleep and to wake up,” said Fu, a professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco.<\/p>\n For this study, the researchers conducted experiments in mice who had the mouse equivalent of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, or declining brain function, in humans.\n<\/p>\n The researchers bred mice that had both short-sleep genes and genes that predisposed them to Alzheimer’s and found that their brains developed fewer dementia symptoms than mice who had a genetic risk for the disease alone.<\/p>\n They repeated the experiment using mice with a different short-sleep gene and another dementia gene and saw similar results, they said.<\/p>\n The researchers believe that similar studies with other brain conditions would show the efficient-sleep genes providing similar protection, suggesting that improving peoples’ sleep could delay progression of a number of diseases.<\/p>\n In addition, understanding the biological underpinnings of sleep regulation could help identify drugs that will help ward off problems with sleep disorders, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “This work opens the door to a new understanding of how to delay and possibly prevent a lot of diseases,” Fu aid.<\/p>\n “Our goal really is to help everyone live healthier and longer through getting optimum sleep,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some people are genetically predisposed to getting a better night’s sleep, drawing more rest from less time in bed and having more energy than others, a study shows. Photo by Olichel\/Pixabay March 15 (UPI) — Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco have identified genes that help some people are get a better night’s sleep, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1022438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[234,4603,6187,176,5788,2137,6188,28],"class_list":["post-1022437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-brain","tag-diseases","tag-elite","tag-finds","tag-genes","tag-protect","tag-sleepers","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Genes](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Genes-of-elite-sleepers-may-protect-them-from-brain-diseases-study-finds.jpg\" "\\"Genes")
\n<\/div>\nSome people are genetically predisposed to getting a better night’s sleep, drawing more rest from less time in bed and having more energy than others, a study shows. Photo by Olichel\/Pixabay<\/p>\n