SLEEP does help to keep you fighting fit

OUR diets — or more specifically, ultra-processed foods — are not the only potential trigger for chronic inflammation. Stress, pollution, obesity and chronic disease can ramp it up.

Sleep, too, plays a major role. Studies have shown that on the one hand, poor quality sleep can cause the kind of disruption that triggers inflammation in our bodies — and on the other hand, if your body is battling chronic inflammation, you’ll struggle to sleep well.

It has long been known that long-term insomnia — an inability to fall asleep or stay asleep — increases the risk of serious conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, obesity and even certain cancers. And it is now clear that the body’s inflammatory response is largely to blame, by causing damage to healthy tissue.

When we sleep, the body goes into an intense phase of repair and regeneration. It’s also when the hormones that regulate growth and appetite are released, says Jason Ellis, a professor of sleep science and author of The One-Week Insomnia Cure.

However, short or disrupted sleep limits this vitally important process.

As well as disrupting our night-time body repair, it leads to a ‘dysregulation’ of the system that governs important hormones (such as melatonin, which guides our sleep/ wake cycle, and important hunger and satiety hormones).

Poor sleep also affects the immune system’s ability to fight infection and protect us against disease.

THIS becomes a vicious circle of yet more inflammation — if your circadian rhythm (the 24-hour body clock that drives hormones and other changes that govern sleep and wakefulness) is out of sync and your immune system isn’t functioning properly, the body will be more prone to inflammation, and more sleep problems.

‘That’s because some elements of our immune system are intimately tied to our circadian rhythm, especially in terms of producing immuneregulating chemicals — some of which can actually keep us awake,’ says Professor Ellis.

‘If your circadian rhythm is out of sync, the chemical production line can become unstable, and this can promote wakefulness when we should be sleeping and fatigue when we should be awake. Also, your body’s response to an acute sleep disruption is to mount an inflammatory response because it believes you are under threat,’ adds Professor Ellis. ‘This triggers an increase in white blood cells and other protective chemicals, in a bid to manage this perceived threat.’

But with no threat to fend off, over time, these fighter cells use up resources, which causes damage to healthy tissue and systems throughout the body, leading to illness.

Inflammation is now linked to a host of serious conditions, including arthritis, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, cancer and reduced ability to fight off infections. Research suggests that even one night of insufficient sleep is enough to activate pro-inflammatory processes in the body.

However, Professor Ellis says the cumulative effect of chronic insomnia is more worrying: ‘The longer you go with poor sleep, the more frequently you will generate an inappropriate or prolonged inflammatory response and the greater the impact this can have on your health,’ he warns. This is particularly concerning for those in middle age, when chronic insomnia tends to creep in.

It is clear that good quality sleep is one way to guard against the impact of excessive inflammation in your body.

Studies show that after a recovery sleep following a period of sleep deprivation, levels of those destructive chemicals return to normal.

‘The impact can be quick to rectify the situation because all our systems are driven to achieve homeostasis [producing the right chemicals at the right time],’ says Professor Ellis. Good sleep limits pro-inflammatory activity and offers protection against stress, a major contributor to chronic inflammation.

So the message is: your efforts to reduce inflammation should include looking at your sleep. Professor Ellis believes a further focus should be to take steps to ensure uninterrupted good quality sleep. ‘We have become so focused on the quest to get seven or eight hours’ sleep a night, but the ability to get uninterrupted blocks of sleep is just as important,’ he says. ‘Getting the balance right between the amount of sleep and the quality of sleep we get — that’s the health holy grail.’