Epigenetic Zs: Could a bad night’s sleep alter your genes?

Ben Locwin

Sleep deprivation can not only ruin your day, it may change your DNA.........Don’t lose sleep over losing sleep just yet — the researchers used 15 study participants, which is a vanishingly small study group to make large-scale population decisions from......What the study authors also noted was that the epigenetic changes were of a different effect size between the fat and muscle tissue, which has led to the suggestion that some chronic diseases that have heightened risk factors with lack of sleep such as obesity and type 2 diabetes may be related to the ‘clock desynchrony‘ between the fat tissues of the body and the more energetic muscle tissues......The authors readily acknowledged that they aren’t sure how pernicious or enduring these effects are, or whether a couple nights’ worth of ‘make-up’ sleep can reverse the epigenetic changes. These results aren’t as nihilistic as have been reported......To Read More....

My Take - For those of you who've been reading P and D for some time you know I'm a bit of a stickler for the use of "weasel words" such as "may cause" appearing in a study.  This study has all the markings of junk science except they readily acknowledge this is only a marker for further research. Personally....since I'm over weight  - although I recently lost 40 lbs. - and I'm a type 2 diabetic, and I'm one of those who sleeps so poorly.... I find all this very interesting.....but I wouldn't waste important research money for futher research as I think it doesn't matter. We all have sleep problems occasionally and some - especially old poeple like me - it's a chronic problem. And no matter what they find - that's not going to change!  Let's spend our valuable research money on things we can change. Things we need to fix that are fixable.