Sleeping longer than 8.5 hours a night may be a sign of Alzheimer’s
Researchers analysed data from 2,410 participants in the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), who had a mean age of 70, give or take 8.45 years, and 55.2% of whom were female.
All participants had self-reported sleep duration data and assay results for at least one of four blood-based biomarkers: p-tau181, total tau (t-tau), neurofilament light chain (NfL), or glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP).
To assess the sleep-biomarker relationship across the cognitive spectrum, they included individuals with mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and any history of stroke.
The participants reported typical sleep duration to technicians during clinic visits, where they also gave fasting blood samples for biomarker analysis.
Researchers took several factors that may affect sleep and biomarkers into account during analysis:
- age at time of clinical examination
- APOE e4 status — this gene increases risk of developing Alzheimer’s
- biological sex
- cohort of the FHS the participant was in
- self-reported obstructive sleep apnea
- depression status
- kidney function
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