Fact: Less sleep ==> catch more colds
Fact: Less sleep ==> lower vitamin D
Hypothesis: Less sleep ==> lower vitamin D ==> catch more colds
Suspect: Less Sleep ==> catch more Flu
- Study described in Kurzweilai Sept 2015
If you sleep <5 hours you are 4.5 times more likely to catch a cold - Sleep longer if have more vitamin D – many studies
- Severe Sleep Loss Reduced Immune System – wonder about vitamin D reduction – July 2012
- Overview Colds and flu and Vitamin D
- Reduce probability of getting the Flu
- Immune response to respiratory viruses – vitamin D connection – review May 2015
- Diseases that may be related via low vitamin D 54 associations in Sept 2015
- Common cold (Acute Rhinosinusitis) virually non-existant when Vitamin D is above 50 ng – Oct 2015
Seven or more hours of sleep per night: A health necessity for adults
June 2015 American Academy of Sleep Medicine
< 7 hours a night results in the following
- weight gain,
- diabetes,
- hypertension,
- heart disease and
- stroke,
- depression and
- premature death, as well as “
- impaired immune function,
- increased pain,
- impaired performance,
- increased errors and
- greater risk of accidents
The links show well-documented associations with low vitamin D
Abstract of study: Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold
Sleep. 2015 Jan 17. pii: sp-00619-14. [Epub ahead of print]
Prather AA, Janicki-Deverts D, Hall MH, Cohen S.
STUDY OBJECTIVES:
Short sleep duration and poor sleep continuity have been implicated in the susceptibility to infectious illness. However, prior research has relied on subjective measures of sleep, which are subject to recall bias. The aim of this study was to determine whether sleep, measured behaviorally using wrist actigraphy, predicted cold incidence following experimental viral exposure.
DESIGN, MEASUREMENTS, AND RESULTS:
A total of 164 healthy men and women (age range, 18 to 55 y) volunteered for this study. Wrist actigraphy and sleep diaries assessed sleep duration and sleep continuity over 7 consecutive days. Participants were then quarantined and administered nasal drops containing the rhinovirus, and monitored over 5 days for the development of a clinical cold (defined by infection in the presence of objective signs of illness). Logistic regression analysis revealed that actigraphy- assessed shorter sleep duration was associated with an increased likelihood of development of a clinical cold. Specifically, those sleeping
- <5 h (odds ratio [OR]= 4.50, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.08-18.69) or sleeping between
- 5 to 6 h (OR = 4.24, 95% CI, 1.08-16.71)
were at greater risk of developing the cold compared to those sleeping >7 h per night; those sleeping 6.01 to 7 h were at no greater risk (OR = 1.66; 95% CI 0.40-6.95). This association was independent of prechallenge antibody levels, demographics, season of the year, body mass index, psychological variables, and health practices. Sleep fragmentation was unrelated to cold susceptibility. Other sleep variables obtained using diary and actigraphy were not strong predictors of cold susceptibility.
CONCLUSIONS: Shorter sleep duration, measured behaviorally using actigraphy prior to viral exposure, was associated with increased susceptibility to the common cold.
PMID: 26118561