"Acute Sleep Loss Increases Blood Levels of Alzheimer's Biomarker" - Megan Brooks
Acute sleep loss results in increased plasma levels of tau, which has been proposed as a biomarker to assess subsequent risk of Alzheimer's disease, new research suggests. According to investigators, this may be because of increased neuronal activity that's required to sustain wakefulness during the night. Andrew Varga, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who was not involved in the study said, “While there was some previous evidence that various forms of sleep disruption could impact tau and its phosphorylation, it also remained unclear how quickly this could happen. The work from this abstract suggests that increases in plasma tau can be seen in just one night of overnight sleep loss.” He added, “Though it's a bit of a leap, taken together, it adds to evidence that sleep loss can increase Alzheimer's disease risk.”
— Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai