Correlation between breast cancer and lack of sleep

Lack of sleep may increase the risk of developing breast cancer. This is the result of a study by American researchers.

Lack of sleep is associated with a variety of health risks. Whether lack of sleep increases the risk of breast cancer? This question now under investigation of a research team from Ohio. The researchers, led by the cancer specialist Prof. Dr. Cheryl Thompson interviewed 412 patients according to their average nightly sleep duration in the last two years, before the breast cancer diagnosis. Then they analyze certain tumor genes to determine how aggressive the cancer was and how high would be the chance of relapse after treatment.

The scientists found that the breast cancer genes, a greater aggressiveness exhibited less, among women who slept six hours and that also increases the risk of relapse. The relationship between other risk factors, such as age, physical activity, smoking, or obesity were also eliminated. „This is the first study shows that women, who regularly sleep less amount of hours, more frequent suffer from aggressive breast cancer”, said the researchers.

Sleeping as cancer prevention?

Therefore, according to Thompson, so far underrated in past, the prolongation and qualitative improvement of sleep, could be a preventative measure against breast cancer. However, the effects of sleep shown only in women after menopause. Why this is so? The researchers could not explain. However, they pointed out, that it’s long been known, that women before and after menopause has different factors of the development of breast cancer.

Sleep deprivation has been linked for some time with an increasing number of diseases. More recently, a study has shown that a disturbed nights sleep during a few weeks increases the risk of diabetes. As the co-author of the study, Li Li from the Institute of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Cleveland said: “Too short and poor sleep is a risk factor for many diseases, such as obesity, diabetes or heart disease, but also one of the triggers for breast cancer after menopause “.