Search Here

The next time you want to stay up for more than 24 hours, you might want to rethink that idea. Researchers from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are saying that not getting enough sleep "jolts the immune system into action in the same type of immediate response shown during exposure to physical stress."

Researchers studied the white blood cells of 15 men when they were well rested - a strict schedule of eight hours of sleep every day for a week with no caffeine, alcohol or medication during the final three days - and compared it to response to the white blood cells after the men have been awake for 29 hours straight.

For the sleep deprived observation, researchers noted that the white blood cells, granulocytes, lost its usual pattern.

Obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure have been said to be caused partly because of sleep deprivation. Other studies have shown that sleep helps sustain the functioning of the immune system, and that chronic sleep loss is a risk factor for immune system impairment, the researchers note.

 "The granulocytes reacted immediately to the physical stress of sleep loss and directly mirrored the body's stress response," said Katrin Ackermann, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher at the Eramus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands and the study's lead author. "Future research will reveal the molecular mechanisms behind this immediate stress response and elucidate its role in the development of diseases associated with chronic sleep loss. If confirmed with more data, this will have implications for clinical practice and for professions associated with long-term sleep loss, such as rotating shift work."