Latest news with #UKBiobank
Daily Mail
14 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Major study finds link between bad habit practiced by 70million Americans and more than 170 diseases
People who repeatedly suffer from poor sleeping habits could be at greater risk of more than 170 diseases, ranging from gangrene to dementia, a groundbreaking new study suggests. The research, led by teams from Peking University and the Army Medical University in China, analyzed objective sleep data from 88,460 adults who took part in a nationwide survey run by the UK Biobank platform. The participants answered over 160 questions about their sleeping habits, including their ability to fall to sleep, their hours of sleep per night, their quality of sleep and associated lifestyle and behaviors. From an in-depth analysis of the results, the researchers found significant associations between various sleep traits and 172 diseases. The included participants were on average 62 years old, and 43 percent were males. Using data from a wearable device worn over an average of about seven years, researchers identified that 92 diseases had over 20 percent of their risk attributable to poor sleep behavior. Notably, irregular bedtime, defined in the study as falling asleep after 12:30AM, was linked to a 2.6-fold higher risk of liver cirrhosis, while inconsistent sleeping patterns increased the risk of gangrene, death of body tissue, by 2.6 times. A total of 42 diseases exhibited over two-fold risk associated with certain sleep traits such as sleep quality, quantity and consistency. These conditions included Parkinson's disease, age-related frailty, gangrene, fibrosis and cirrhosis of liver. Meanwhile, 122 diseases had at least 1.5-fold risk, including type 2 diabetes, respiratory failure, bone and spine fractures and urinary incontinence. Among the 172 diseases found to be associated with sleep, up to 52 percent of the risk of a single disease could be attributed to a sleep trait. Ninety-two diseases had over a 20 percent risk attributable to at least one sleep trait, and 44 diseases had one attributable risk over 30 percent. Some common diseases showed considerable attributable risk, such as Parkinson's disease (37 percent by caused by inconsistent sleeping patterns) and urinary incontinence (24 percent by how much time you spend asleep while in bed). Importantly, the study challenges previous claims that 'long sleep' (more than nine hours) is harmful. While subjective reports have linked long sleep to stroke and heart disease, objective data in the most recent study revealed this association only with heart disease. Misclassification may be to blame, the researchers say. Just over 21 percent of 'long sleepers' actually slept less than six hours, suggesting that time spent in bed is often confused with actual sleep time. Recommended guidelines suggest seven to nine hours is the ideal sleep time for adults. 'Our findings underscore the overlooked importance of sleep regularity,' said Prof. Shengfeng Wang, senior author of the study. 'It's time we broaden our definition of good sleep beyond just duration.' Looking ahead, the researchers want to look at the impact of sleep treatment plans on chronic disease outcomes. Dr Chris Winter, a neurologist specializing in sleep, previously told the link between poor sleep and health issues are 'probably multi-factorial.' He said that sleeping too little causes the nervous system to malfunction, leading to a higher heart rate, high blood pressure, and elevated stress levels. Poor sleep can also exacerbate inflammation in the body, a well-known risk factor for cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia, and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Weight and metabolism are also impacted when a person sleeps too poorly, as diet tends to suffer. Sleep's effects on hormones mean people are likely to make unhealthier food choices. Dr Beth Frates, director of lifestyle medicine and wellness in the Department of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, said: 'Most people focus on exercise and diet when it comes to weight management and a healthy heart, but few focus on sleep. 'Working to find ways to clean up sleep hygiene may help people to extend sleep time to the recommended seven to nine hours per night. 'This could, in turn, lead to consuming fewer calories and even weight loss in people who are in the overweight category by BMI.' In another study examining the risk to heart health published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers found that middle-aged adults with conditions like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, or stroke may face a higher risk of cancer and premature death if they sleep less than six hours a night. It is known that the effects of poor sleep can be felt immediately, and after around three days of too little sleep, a person can develop hallucinations or psychosis. It can also lead to an increased risk of death by accident or injury. Almost 20 percent of all serious car crash injuries among the general public are associated with driver sleepiness, independent of alcohol effects. Compared to drivers who had slept for a regular seven hours, those who reported they'd slept fewer were 1.3 times more likely to crash, while those who slept five to six hours were nearly two times as likely to crash.
Buzz Feed
16 hours ago
- Health
- Buzz Feed
Apparently Covid Aged All Our Brains, Even If You Didn't Catch It
Those with long Covid, a condition which sees symptoms persist months or even years after catching the Covid-19 virus, have long reported 'brain fog'. Though scientists aren't sure why the link seems to exist, some suspect that Covid can persist in the gut long after the acute infection has gone – creating microbiome changes associated with brain issues. But new research published in Nature Communications last week (22 July) has suggested the pandemic may have aged all of our brains, whether we caught the virus or not. In fact, it appeared to have aged our brains by nearly six months. How much did the pandemic age our brains? The researchers looked at the brain scans of almost 1,000 healthy people from the UK Biobank study. They checked them before the pandemic, and some had scans after, too. Using data from over 15,000 brain scans, along with machine learning and imaging, the scientists predicted the brain age of the participants involved in the study. After comparing like-for-like scans (participants were matched for gender, age, and health status), the researchers found that, on average, our brains' ageing appeared to have been accelerated by 5.5 months after the pandemic. This was the case whether or not participants had actually caught Covid themselves. 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain ageing rates,' the study's lead author Dr Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad said. 'It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.' Why did the pandemic appear to make our brains age faster? This study didn't seek to find that out, but its results suggest that brain ageing may have hit men and socioeconomically-disadvantaged people harder. The researchers speculated that a lack of socialising and exercise for some in the pandemic may have led to the change, as could increased consumption of alcohol. 'This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment,' Dr Dorothee Auer, Professor of Neuroimaging and senior author on the study, said. 'The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage. We can't yet test whether the changes we saw will reverse, but it's certainly possible, and that's an encouraging thought.'
WIRED
16 hours ago
- Health
- WIRED
The Pandemic Appears to Have Accelerated Brain Aging, Even in People Who Never Got Covid
Jul 29, 2025 12:52 PM Stress, isolation, and uncertainty appear to have caused the brain to age quicker for those who lived through the crisis. Photographer: LisaMore than five years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are still discovering the after-effects of not only the virus but also the prolonged period of stress, isolation, loss, and uncertainty that the pandemic caused. A new scientific study, published this month in Nature Communications, has revealed that the pandemic may have accelerated brain aging in people even if they were never infected with the coronavirus. Researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK analyzed brain images captured before and after the onset of the health crisis. The scientists found that the brains of those who lived through the pandemic appeared to age faster over its duration compared to those whose brains were only scanned prior to March 2020. 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain aging rates,' said Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a coauthor of the study, in a statement on the university's website. 'It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.' The team used longitudinal data from the UK Biobank, a huge dataset that is periodically collecting biological information from roughly half a million people over a long period of time and which includes MRI scans of nearly 1,000 adults. Of these people, some had received two scans before the pandemic (the control group), while others had one before and one after confinement and health restrictions had been implemented in response to the viral outbreak (the 'pandemic' group). 'The longitudinal MRI data acquired before and after the pandemic from the UK Biobank gave us a rare window to observe how such a major life event can affect the brain,' said Stamatios Sotiropoulos, professor of computational neuroimaging at the University of Nottingham and a coauthor of the study, in a statement. To estimate each person's 'brain age,' the researchers trained a machine-learning model on more than 15,000 healthy volunteers without chronic diseases to allow them to determine how much older or younger a brain looked relative to its chronological age. They then used this tool to assess the ages of the MRI brain scans in the two Biobank groups. When looking at the second scans in each group, the mean difference between chronological and measured age was 5.5 months higher in the pandemic group compared to the control group. The researchers also found that this acceleration of brain aging was more marked in older people, men, and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, such as those with low educational levels, precarious jobs, or housing and health difficulties. 'This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness but by our everyday environment,' said Dorothee Auer, lead author of the study, in in a statement released by the University of Nottingham. 'The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage.' Although brain aging was seen universally among those living through the pandemic, only those infected went on to show measurable cognitive impairment, a symptom of Covid that has been documented in the past. The study found that those in the pandemic group who had Covid between the two scans experienced a drop in performance in mental flexibility and processing speed tests. In contrast, those who were not infected showed no significant cognitive changes, suggesting that structural aging does not always translate into visible functional symptoms. However, the authors acknowledge that there are some important limitations to this observational study, which could bias the results. These include the interval of time between people's scans differing between the two groups, as well as the UK Biobank lacking representation from the most marginalized sectors of the British population. The researchers also highlighted the possibility of reversibility, as only brain scans from two time points were analyzed, meaning that there may be neurological recovery in these people in subsequent years. 'We don't yet know if the observed changes can be reversed, but it is an encouraging idea,' Auer said. This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
The Star
21 hours ago
- Health
- The Star
Study: Covid-19 has affected our brains
The strain on people's lives during the pandemic such as weeks of isolation and uncertainty surrounding the crisis may have aged people's brains, researchers believe. — dpa The Covid-19 pandemic was 'detrimental' to brain health, even among people who never caught the infection, a new study reveals. Academics suggest the strain on people's lives – from isolation for weeks on end to the uncertainty surrounding the crisis – may have aged the brains of society. They found that brain ageing during the pandemic was 'more pronounced' among men, older people and people from deprived backgrounds. Brain ageing models were trained on more than 15,000 healthy people. These were then applied to almost 1,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank study – a long-term study tracking the health of middle and older aged adults. Half of the group had brain scans before the pandemic while the others had brain scans before and after the global crisis. After looking at the scans, academics said that the pandemic 'significantly' accelerated brain ageing. This was assessed by their brain age, as determined by the scans, compared with their actual age. The research team found that, on average, the scans taken after people had lived through the crisis had a '5.5-month higher deviation of brain age gap'. 'We found that the Covid-19 pandemic was detrimental to brain health and induced accelerated brain ageing. regardless of SARS-CoV-2 infection,' the experts from the University of Nottingham wrote in the journal Nature Communications . Dr Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, who led the study, said: 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain ageing rates. 'It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.' The research team also examined whether having Covid-19 affected someone's cognitive performance by examining the results of tests taken at the time of the scans. They found that people who were infected with the virus appeared to perform more poorly on cognitive tests when they were assessed again after the pandemic. Dr Dorothee Auer, professor of neuroimaging and senior author on the study, added: 'This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment. 'The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage. 'We can't yet test whether the changes we saw will reverse, but it's certainly possible, and that's an encouraging thought.' – PA Media/dpa
Cosmopolitan
a day ago
- Health
- Cosmopolitan
Covid has made our brains age faster, says a new study – even if you were never ill with the virus
A new study from the University of Nottingham suggests the Covid pandemic may have left a very real impact on our brains, even if we were never sick with the virus. After analysing the data of over 15,000 adults via the UK Biobank – a biomedical treasure trove of health data and samples from half a million participants – scientists, with the help of artificial intelligence, compared brain ages found in two distinct two groups. One group had multiple brain scans taken before the pandemic over a set period of time, the second looked at those with scans taken both before and during the pandemic. Via this method, researchers found on average the human brain aged five and a half months faster during the pandemic than it did pre-2020. "This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment," explains Dorothee Auer, Professor of Neuroimaging and senior author on the study. "The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage. We can't yet test whether the changes we saw will reverse, but it's certainly possible, and that's an encouraging thought." The University study reports that "the changes were most noticeable in older individuals, in men, and in people from more disadvantaged backgrounds". It's a staunch reminder of just how big an impact stress and worry can have on our minds and bodies. "What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had COVID showed significant increases in brain aging rates," added neurologist Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, who also worked on the study. "It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health." Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC's Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women's Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
