Why bad dreams could be aging and prematurely killing you
Nightmares can literally scare the life out of people, new research suggests.
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Frequent unpleasant dreams and nightmares are being linked with accelerated biological aging and an untimely death.
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According to a British team, people who experience weekly distressing dreams are three times more likely to die before they reach age 70 than people who rarely or never report experiencing nightmares.
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Telomeres get shorter every time a cell divides, and shorter telomeres are considered a sign of accelerated aging of the body's cells.
Cortisol is present at high levels during nightmares.
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'For those who frequently experience nightmares, this cumulative stress may significantly impact the aging process,' the study's lead author, Dr. Abidemi Otaiku, of the UK Dementia Research Institute and Imperial College London, said in a statement released this week.
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What's more, nightmares mess with how well and how long people sleep, 'impairing the body's essential overnight cellular restoration and repair,' Otaiku said. 'The combined effects of chronic stress and disrupted sleep likely contribute to the accelerated aging of our cells and bodies.'
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Nightmares are common, Otaiku reported in earlier work linking nightmares with an i ncreased risk of dementia and cognitive decline in middle-aged adults.
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About five percent of adults experience nightmares weekly, and up to 40 percent monthly, percentages that are likely even higher if bad dreams are thrown in, he said. Considering how common a phenomenon nightmares are, 'it is surprising that their clinical significance remains largely unknown,' he wrote.
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In the latest study, presented this week at the European Academy of Neurology Congress in Helsinki, Otaiku and colleagues analyzed pooled data from 2,429 children aged eight to 10, and 183,012 adults aged 26 to 86 from six cohort studies following large groups of people over time.
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Adults reported how often they had nightmares at the start of the study, and were followed for up to 19 years. For kids, nightmare frequency was reported by parents.
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According to a release, adults reporting weekly nightmares were three times as likely to die prematurely than people who rarely or never experienced distressing dreams. 'Children and adults with more frequent nightmares also exhibited faster biological aging, which accounted for approximately 40 percent of the heightened mortality risk' among adults, according to the release.
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