The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
deep sleep however we've now discovered is critical for drisking your Alzheimer's trajectory it's during deep sleep when you have a cleansing system in the brain that starts washing away the toxic proteins that build up by way of wakefulness and two of those toxic components are something that we call beta ameloid and Tow protein which are fundamental ingredients in the Alzheimer's disease brain equation
Every Sunday: the week’s new conflicts and verdict changes — and nothing else.
Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
when you take it down to the level of animal studies where they selectively deprive animals of either deep non REM sleep or they fragment their sleep you get an immediate amyloid buildup centrally within the brain you start to have what looks like a sort of you know an amyloid sort of genic process that's happening
So if you're not getting Enough deep sleep at night, you're not giving yourself the chance for the kind of good night and sleep clean process to remove the beta amyloid. So more beta amyloid builds up. Where does it build up? Tragically, in the very same regions of the brain that generate the deep sleep that you need to clear out the toxic amyloid. So you start getting less deep sleep, so you get more toxic protein, more toxic protein, less deep sleep, less deep sleep. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it's a nonlinear exponential curve.
If you look at how amyloid builds up in the brain, and if you look at the trajectory of Alzheimer's disease, it is a nonlinear exponential curve. It fits exactly what the sleep-dependent model of amyloid clearance would predict.
And, in fact, if you deprive those rats of that deep sleep, you immediately get an increase in toxic beta amyloid.
Is it possible that the amount of amyloid that you have in the brain in this sleep-generating center, it should directly predict the deficit in the amount of deep sleep that you get? If it predicts the deficit in the deep sleep, it should predict the deficit in your ability to hold on and retain new memories, which is a hallmark cognitive feature of Alzheimer's disease, difficulty learning, difficulty retaining.
these plaques can interfere with synapses between neurons which we think is a major factor in alzheimer's disease but research indicates these plaques can also inhibit deep sleep so it may be a vicious cycle poor sleep promotes the buildup of amyloid beta plaques which in turn promotes poor sleep creating a feedback that has direct effects on brain health