Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia • Hacker News Board

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#61

Post by intergalplan » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #38

irrational wrote: post #6

So, anyone with kids is probably going to have dementia?

Not doubting anyone's personal experience, but to add another anecdotal data point: Kids weren't as disruptive to sleep as I expected after reading horror stories online. The way the internet talks about child raising sometimes makes it feel like martyrdom, but the internet tends to focus on worst-case stories and people venting about uniquely bad situations. It's almost taboo to share positive stories when other par…

> However, I and most of my friends have had good results with combinations of sleep training and adjusting our own sleep schedules for additional buffer.

Bingo. Also don't insist on both being awake for every nighttime wake period and use a shift system, plus offset your go-to-bed times, and then, unless you're very unlucky or your newborn has some kind of illness, you're looking at 6ish hours of sleep a night with at least one night a week of 8+ hours (when you can each give the other a "sleep make-up night" to sleep in basically indefinitely, probably on a weekend).

Sleep train right, and you're gonna be doing this for 3 months, tops. They should be down to one feeding a night around IIRC 1 month, so it gets way better then.

3 for 3 on having our kids sleeping through the night (as in, we only have to wake up and do something if there's an unusual situation, and aren't woken up at all at least 6 weeks a night) by no later than 10 weeks. I believe some people do get unlucky and their kids just won't sleep through the night that early, but it's quite rare (again, unless your kid's sick, that changes everything).

Everyone we see having trouble with it is one or more of:

1) keeping their kid in the same room or same bed (no judgement on co-sleeping for other reasons, but continuing it past the first couple weeks seems, anecdotally, strongly correlated with kids who still won't sleep through the night at 6 months and beyond, and have trouble going to sleep in the first place),

2) pouncing on their baby the second they make a sound at night, even past the first couple weeks, at which point you should stop that and gradually increase your response times to waking/crying unless you want to train your kid to wake up a lot (by rewarding waking with attention, and not letting them learn how to transition between sleep cycles),

3) unable to handle "cry it out" for the 2-3 nights it'll probably take to finish the process, if you've followed the steps you should have to correctly reduce how often they wake by ~8 weeks or so (if you haven't, it might take a lot longer, but... just don't do that)

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#62

Post by bradford » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #36

decafninja wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Elon Musk looks his age, and looks pretty ok for a 49 year old. Granted he has money, and he's had hair transplants, but I've seen many late 40s early 50s people in much worse shape.

IME, the biggest predictor for people looking younger than their age is exercising and avoiding alcohol. I'm sure sleep is in there since people who do the other 2 normally also sleep ok.

I'd add tobacco use and UV exposure to that list (anecdotal of course).

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#63

Post by rednerrus » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #32

overcast wrote: post #7

Unless it's an emergency, I've ALWAYS prioritized sleep. It's just too important for health regardless of these latest findings. I'd call in to work if I didn't get a full nights rest in the past, it's not worth feeling like shit for the rest of the day. The culture of glamorizing working longer and harder till early hours of the mornings on zero sleep, has always been nonsense. Musk is notorious for bragging about t…

Some people are willing to trade health for fortune and fame. There's been interviews with Musk where he describes being unable to turn his brain off. He's probably just leaning hard into the cards that life dealt him - a wildly productive brain that wants to go go go. I don't blame him for taking what he was dealt, and running with it.

He's leaning hard into the stimulants...

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#64

Post by serpix » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #39

Tenoke wrote: post #33

~6 hours or just above it in general seems to be the sweetspot. Most negative effects (especially broad ones like all-cause mortality) only really start showing up under 6 (or over 7 hours)[0]. Too bad the majority of reporting exaggerates and starts scaring people for going under 8 (and sometimes 9!) when yet again it seems like 6-7 is likely best, with very little 'loss' between 7 and 6. Just don't go much lower th…

Yeah, I naturally sleep around 7 hours. If I get Another thing that my wife hates (ie, is jealous of), is my head hits the pillow and I'm out. Also, during that 6 hour sweet spot, I can sleep through almost anything.

My dad is like this. Please tell me as I am curious, do you tend to self-reflect or have a vivid inner world? I'm trying to understand how my dad does this and my current theory is that he simply does not dwell on things and runs mostly on instinct.

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#65

Post by balfirevic » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

Tenoke wrote: post #33

~6 hours or just above it in general seems to be the sweetspot. Most negative effects (especially broad ones like all-cause mortality) only really start showing up under 6 (or over 7 hours)[0]. Too bad the majority of reporting exaggerates and starts scaring people for going under 8 (and sometimes 9!) when yet again it seems like 6-7 is likely best, with very little 'loss' between 7 and 6. Just don't go much lower th…

> Most negative effects (especially broad ones like all-cause mortality) only really start showing up under 6

Most - maybe. But one very important negative effect is that waking up without enough sleep is, quite literally, torturous.

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#66

Post by gregf » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

I'm screwed then. Due to a mental issue and my sleep paralysis I'm lucky if I sleep 3-4 hours a night as much as I would like to sleep more.

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#67

Post by tinyhouse » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

senux wrote: post #9

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

"However, this study cannot establish cause and effect" is the only part of this article that matters, and it demonstrates the ineptitude of the article writer.

I agree. This sort of article is partly the reason why we so often here something like "science can't make up its mind" or "x is good now but was bad before, and will be bad again soon". Instead of sharing accurate information about the findings of these researchers, news organizations use them to write catchy, clickbait-y articles. Needless to say, researchers are often to blame as well, since they participate in in…

> researchers are often to blame as well, since they participate in interviews using vague language so that they can benefit from the exposure, well aware of the repercussions of their behavior.

I would also add that like everything in life, there's a large distribution of researchers. Some do poor research. This is true for all fields. One example is when a researcher has an hypothesis in mind which they try to force even if the results don't really support it. Doing great science is hard and researchers in the end have pressure to publish papers.

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#68

Post by fighterpilot » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

"However, this study cannot establish cause and effect" is the only part of this article that matters, and it demonstrates the ineptitude of the article writer.

Yeah, the headline isn't a conclusion that can be drawn from the study, and is guaranteed to mislead most people who come across it. Shame.

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#69

Post by eurasiantiger » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

sixstringtheory wrote: post #54

carbocation wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there causal analyses of sleep on those other forms of dementia?

I'm not well versed on different kinds of studies... could you explain the differences between "causal analysis" and whatever the study linked in the article is? They mention a longitudinal study and that the "finding was confirmed in analysis using sleep duration measured by an accelerometer." I assume a causal analysis would also determine the direction of the causality, e.g. if it turns out that people predisposed…

Accelerometers tell nothing about the actual sleep duration. Is this another one of that quack sleep doctor’s ”everyone needs 8 hours of sleep every night” studies?

Re: Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia

#70

Post by tinyhouse » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #16

I always wonder about the direction of causality (if any) in these studies. I’m fortunate to mostly live without an alarm clock. I naturally get up before any scheduled activities, only early morning flights (previously) or EU time zone meetings require an alarm. Even without an alarm, I typically wake up feeling fully refreshed after 5-6 hours, rarely more than 7. If I end up with dementia (family history indicates…

Not an expert. But if you're fully refreshed I think you're fine. Many people would take it, that's for sure. Research is useful. But nothing is more useful than listening to your own body. When something is wrong there are usually signs.