Not all stages of sleep are equal in terms of benefits for the brain.Greater amounts of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep were associated with lower risks of 83 diseases, including dementia, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure, new research has shown.Additionally, greater amounts of deep sleep were associated with lower risks of seven conditions.THIS ONE QUESTION MAY REVEAL WHETHER YOUR BODY IS GETTING THE REST IT NEEDS, STUDY FINDSThat’s according to a study of 95,559 adults who wore wrist accelerometers continuously for seven consecutive days and nights.Researchers in China used deep-learning algorithms to analyze REM sleep, deep sleep, light sleep, total sleep duration, wakefulness after sleep onset and sleep irregularity.They then looked at health records to assess associations with more than 1,000 diseases over a nearly nine-year follow-up period.Greater amounts of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep were associated with lower risks of 83 diseases, including dementia, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure, new research has shown.
(iStock)Greater REM sleep was associated with a significantly lower risk of several diseases, including Parkinson’s (80% lower relative risk), dementia (46% lower risk) and heart failure (26% lower risk).Greater deep sleep was associated with lower risks of seven conditions, including type 2 diabetes and major depressive disorder.MORE NAPS, HIGHER RISK? RESEARCH LINKS DAYTIME SLEEP TO HEALTH WARNINGS IN AGING ADULTSSleep duration was also found to be highly linked to disease outcome.Six to eight hours per night was found to be the "sweet spot" that was associated with the lowest risk for 69 diseases.
In contrast, sleeping fewer than five hours per night was linked to an increased risk of 37 health conditions.The study also found that greater night-to-night sleep irregularity and more wakefulness during the night were associated with higher risks of several conditions, including anxiety and substance use disorders.The findings were ...