Side effects of Insomnia on our health
Good sleep is not much matter of course nowadays. Through long hours and increased use of new communication technologies, the duration of sleep is reduced and deteriorated its quality. It is often forgotten that sleep is an important support for our health. What health risks we expose ourselves when we neglect our sleep? You’ll find out in today’s post.
Poor sleep and cancers.
Study has shown that men with sleep problems had twice as much Prostate Cancer-Risk than men with healthy sleep patterns.
A sleep duration of less than six hours a night is also a risk factor for colorectal adenomas – benign tumors of the colon. Those people who had slept less than six hours a night, showed a 50% higher risk of disease than the control group who got seven or more hours of sleep.
Insulin resistance and impaired melatonin production are two main cancer-promoting mechanisms that are activated in chronic insomnia. Melatonin plays a major role in cancer prevention, because it inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells and activates the self-destruction of abnormal cells (cancer cell apoptosis).
Poor sleep and weight gain and type 2 diabetes.
In a study from 2005, it was found that sleep has a modulating effect on the glucose metabolism. A lack of sleep reduces the level of fat-regulating hormone leptin while increasing the appetite stimulating hormone ghrelin.
That a short sleep duration over several days promotes weight gain, was also shown in an experiment. A group of participants who slept five consecutive nights from 4.00 bios 08.00 clock, was compared to a control group that was sleeping von 22 bis 8 clock clock. It was concluded that the long dormant subjects had more food and thus more calories consumed than the control group.
The relationship between weight gain and cancer is for Women particularly important because overweight women have a higher risk of breast cancer. The reason for this is that many breast cancers are amplified by estrogen and estrogen is produced in adipose tissue. So the more body fat, the more the cancer-promoting estrogen produced.
Sleep during the day is not a substitute for nighttime sleep.
To confirm the need for a regular sleep at night, researchers have also investigated a link between night shift workers and higher rates of breast cancer. A Danish study came to the conclusion that women who worked at night and slept during the day have a higher risk of breast cancer than did women who were regularly sleeping at night. In addition, cancer in the night vision workers was promoting the Lack of vitamin D, which leads to an increased risk of cancer.
Since vitamin D is formed in the skin by sunlight and can be included in sufficiently aware of the food that working at night women logical suffered to vitamin D deficiency. The finding proves additionally the hypothesis that a healthy sleep has a huge role in maintaining a holistic health:
- Healthy sleep ensures a stable hormonal imbalance. Prevent insulin, leptin, ghrelin and melatonin.
- Healthy sleep makes the production of essential vitamin D only at all possible, because it can be made only if we are active during the day and sleep at night.
So if you think that you are chronically affected by lack of healthy sleep, get information on how you can improve the quality of your sleep, to make your holistic health now and in the future more resistant.