How poor sleep affects your body

Beskrivelse

One in ten of us live with chronic sleeping problems and fatigue during the day. But what actually happens inside our bodies when we don’t get enough sleep? The results of a new study based on 30 pairs of twins suggests that less than seven hours of sleep is bad for our health and leads to poor cell function. "When the twins slept for 90 minutes less than they should--for a prolonged period--their cell function seemed to be reduced to a level equivalent to that of someone 10 years older," says co-author Jonas Mengel-From, associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark. Less than seven hours of sleep a night caused a reduction in so-called mitochondrial DNA copies in the participants’ blood cells. Mitochondria are like the power source of a blood cell: cells function much better when more mitochondrial DNA copies are available, and we feel fresher as a result.