NIGHT OWLS AT HIGHER RISK OF DYING SOONER
Night owls – people who like to stay up late and have trouble dragging themselves out of bed in the morning – have a higher risk of dying sooner than larks, people who have a natural preference for going to bed early and rising with the sun.
The study between Surrey and Northwestern Medicine in Chicago researched nearly half a million participants in the UK Biobank Study. They found owls have a 10 per cent higher risk of dying earlier than larks which equated to 50,000 people in the six-and-a-half-year period sampled.
Scientists also found owls had higher rates of diabetes, and psychological and neurological disorders.
“Night owls trying to live in a morning lark world may have health consequences for their bodies,” said Kristen Knutson, associate professor of neurology at Northwestern.
“It could be that people who are up late have an internal biological clock that doesn’t match their external environment. It could be psychological stress, eating at the wrong time for their body, not exercising enough, not sleeping enough, being awake at night by yourself, maybe drug or alcohol use. There are a whole variety of unhealthy behaviours related to being up late in the dark by yourself.”
THREE DECADES OF SURREY’S PIONEERING SLEEP RESEARCH
Using melatonin to treat sleep disorders
In 1986, Emeritus Professor Josephine Arendt’s research revealed that jet-lag can be alleviated by taking melatonin. These discoveries led to widespread use of melatonin in sleep disorders. It has also led to the development of a new drug that targets the melatonin receptor that is now on the market to treat non-24-hour sleep disorders in the blind.
Increasing alertness with blue light
In 2001, Professor Debra Skene and her team demonstrated, for the first time, that blue light at a certain wavelength (469-480 nanometres) suppresses melatonin, the hormone that promotes drowsiness and sleep. The Professor of Neuroendocrinology said: “The discovery of a novel ocular photoreceptor system in the retina and its activation by blue light has led to the development of new lighting systems to improve health.”
The impact of sleep deficiency on genes
In 2013, Professor Derk-Jan Dijk, Director of the Sleep Research Centre, and his team discovered that a lack of sleep (5.7 hours compared to 8.5 hours) affects the activity of more than 700 of our genes, including those that govern the immune system, the body’s response to stress and our natural body clock. Professor Dijk said: “Now that we have identified these effects we can use this information to investigate further the links between insufficient sleep, mistimed sleep, gene expression and overall health.”
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