WEDNESDAY, Oct. 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Poor sleep quality is associated with advanced brain age in midlife, according to a study published online Oct. 23 in Neurology.

Clémence Cavailles, Ph.D., from the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues analyzed sleep data at baseline and five years later to examine the association between early midlife sleep and advanced brain aging patterns in late midlife in a study involving 589 participants. Participants were categorized into zero to one, two to three, and more than three poor sleep characteristics (PSC), focusing on short sleep duration, bad sleep quality (SQ), difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep (DIS and DMS), early morning awakening (EMA), and daytime sleepiness. Brain age was determined using brain magnetic resonance images obtained 15 years later.

The researchers found that at baseline, about 70, 22, and 8 percent of participants reported zero to one, two to three, and more than three PSC, respectively. Participants with two to three or more than three PSC had 1.6- and 2.6-year older brain age, respectively, compared with those with zero to one PSC in multivariable linear regression analyses. Associations were seen for bad SQ, DIS, DMS, and EMA with greater brain age, especially when these persisted over the five-year follow-up.

“Our study demonstrated that PSC were associated with accelerated brain aging among middle-aged participants, suggesting that poor sleep may affect brain health as early as midlife,” the authors write.

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