As a part of the College of Colorado Division of Medication’s annual Analysis Day, held on April 23, school member Christine Swanson, MD, MCR, described her Nationwide Institutes of Well being-funded medical analysis on whether or not satisfactory sleep will help forestall osteoporosis.
“Osteoporosis can happen for a lot of causes similar to hormonal adjustments, growing older, and life-style elements,” mentioned Swanson, an affiliate professor within the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes. “However some sufferers I see do not have a proof for his or her osteoporosis.
“Due to this fact, it is vital to search for novel danger elements and contemplate what else adjustments throughout the lifespan like bone does — sleep is a kind of,” she added.
How bone density and sleep change over time
In individuals’s early- to mid-20s, they attain what known as peak bone mineral density, which is greater for males than it’s for girls, Swanson mentioned. This peak is without doubt one of the primary determinants of fracture danger later in life.
After reaching this peak, an individual’s bone density stays roughly steady for a few a long time. Then, when ladies enter the menopausal transition, they expertise accelerated bone loss. Males additionally expertise bone density decline as they age.
Sleep patterns additionally evolve over time. As individuals become older, their whole sleep time decreases, and their sleep composition adjustments. As an example, sleep latency, which is the time it takes to go to sleep, will increase with age. Alternatively, sluggish wave sleep, which is deep restorative sleep, decreases as we age.
“And it is not simply sleep period and composition that change. Circadian part desire additionally adjustments throughout the lifespan in each women and men,” Swanson mentioned, referring to individuals’s desire for once they fall asleep and once they get up.
How can sleep relate to our bone well being?
Genes that management our inner clock are current in all of our bone cells, Swanson mentioned.
“When these cells resorb and kind bone, they launch sure substances into the blood that permit us estimate how a lot bone turnover is occurring at a given time,” she mentioned.
These markers of bone resorption and formation comply with a day by day rhythm. The amplitude of this rhythm is bigger for markers of bone resorption — which refers back to the technique of breaking down bones — than it’s for markers of bone formation, she mentioned.
“This rhythmicity is probably going vital for regular bone metabolism and means that sleep and circadian disturbance may straight have an effect on bone well being,” she mentioned.
Researching the connection between sleep and bone well being
To additional perceive this relationship, Swanson and colleagues researched how markers of bone turnover responded to cumulative sleep restriction and circadian disruption.
For this research, members lived in a very managed inpatient setting. The members didn’t know what time it was, and so they had been placed on a 28-hour schedule as a substitute of a 24-hour day.
“This circadian disruption is designed to simulate the stresses endured throughout rotating night time shift work and is roughly equal to flying 4 time zones west every single day for 3 weeks,” she mentioned. “The protocol additionally brought about members to get much less sleep.”
The analysis crew measured bone turnover markers in the beginning and finish of this intervention and located important detrimental adjustments in bone turnover in each women and men in response to the sleep and circadian disruption. The detrimental adjustments included declines in markers of bone formation that had been considerably better in youthful people in each sexes in comparison with the older people.
As well as, younger ladies confirmed important will increase within the bone resorption marker.
If an individual is forming much less bone whereas nonetheless resorbing the identical quantity — or much more — then, over time, that would result in bone loss, osteoporosis, and elevated fracture danger, Swanson mentioned.
“And intercourse and age could play an vital position, with youthful ladies doubtlessly being essentially the most prone to the detrimental impression of poor sleep on bone well being,” she mentioned.
Analysis on this space is ongoing, she added.
