People who lack sleep are more likely to get colds
An all-nighter may be needed to get things done. But a study shows that people who lack sleep are more likely to get colds. Tough choice.
The study, “Behaviorally assessed sleep and susceptibility to the common cold,” showed that people who sleep six hours or less a night are four times more likely to catch a cold when exposed to the virus, compared to those who had seven hours or more.
Aric Prather, PhD, assistant professor of Psychiatry at UCSF and lead author of the study said that this is the first study to use objective sleep measures to connect people’s natural sleep habits and their risk of getting sick,
“Short sleep was more important than any other factor in predicting subjects’ likelihood of catching cold,” Prather said. “It didn’t matter how old people were, their stress levels, their race, education or income. It didn’t matter if they were a smoker. With all those things taken into account, statistically sleep still carried the day.”
The study recruited 164 volunteers from Pittsburh between 2007 and 2011 who underwent screenings to screen other factors like as stress, temperament, and alcohol and cigarette use. A watch-like sensor measured their sleep quality one week before they were exposed to a cold virus.
Researchers then gathered the participants in a hotel. Volunteers acquired a cold virus through a nasal drops and were monitored for a week. Mucus samples are used to check if the cold took hold.
Results show that subjects who had slept less than six hours a night the week before were 4.2 times more likely to catch the cold compared to those who got more than seven hours of sleep, and those who slept less than five hours were 4.5 times more likely.
“In our busy culture, there’s still a fair amount of pride about not having to sleep and getting a lot of work done,” Prather said. “We need more studies like this to begin to drive home that sleep is a critical piece to our wellbeing.”
