Lower average sleep duration across the lifespan is correlated with increased amyloid buildup in the brain in older adults.

“if you're not getting your sleep at night you're not getting that washing away of the toxic alzheimer's protein every night then you are building up more amyloid within the brain”

“what we certainly see is that if you bucket people into the amount of sleep on average that they've got across the lifespan and at the end of the sort of life or in late life in their 70s and their 80s we do a special type of pet scan to map the amount of amyloid in their brain and then you just sort of look at those brain scans anyone on the street would not need any statistics they would not need any training in brain science to see that one of these maps is different to the other it's like sesame street and what is remarkable is people are getting you know seven hours of sleep or less compared to seven hours of sleep or more there is marked differences in the amount of amyloid that's built up”

“If you're not getting sufficient sleep, that's the reason why now insufficient sleep seems to be one of the most significant lifestyle factors determining that.”