Getting too much or too little sleep may increase dementia risk as much as 28%

• Everyone knows that making healthy lifestyle choices can help lower a person’s risk for many medical conditions, including dementia.
• A new study found getting both the recommended amount of physical activity and sleep may be key to helping reduce a person’s dementia risk.
• Researchers determined that getting either too little or too much sleep may increase dementia risk.

Making healthy lifestyle choices, such as eating a healthy diet, not smoking, getting enough physical activity and proper sleep, can help lower a person’s risk for many medical conditions.

One such condition is dementia — a condition that negatively impacts a person’s thinking and memory skills.

“Dementia affects more than 55 million people worldwide, and despite decades of research, there is still no cure,” Akinkunle Oye-Somefun, PhD, from the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University in Canada, explained to Medical News Today.

“The treatments that exist can slow progression in some people, but they do not stop the disease. That is why identifying modifiable risk factors — behaviors people can change — remains a critical research priority. Behaviors like how much people move, how long they sit, and how long they sleep are among the most promising targets,” he explained.

Oye-Somefun is the first author of a new study published in the journal PLOS One that found getting both the recommended amount of physical activity and sleep may be key to helping reduce a person’s dementia risk.