It has become common to relate a greater number of hours of sleep with optimal rest. However, people’s best functioning may not depend on how much they sleep, but how well they sleep.
A team of researchers from the United States, which has analyzed people’s sleep patterns over the last 25 years, has identified some families who have the ability to sleep for a few hours and function as well or even better than average.
According to the team, led by Louis Ptacek, from the Department of Neurology at the University of California, these people have a “natural short sleep”, which allows them to get up early, but also to go to bed very late.
According to Ptacek, so far, short sleep has been linked to four genes. That also explains why this ‘superpower’ is shared by members of the same family.
It is estimated that only one person in a thousand belongs to this select group of “elite sleepers”Ptacek told the BBC.
“We have a strong impression that these people are healthier than average,” says the specialist. “They sleep much less and are still very functional, so they are perhaps sleeping more efficiently. The question is what does this mean?
Likewise, they intuit that the study focused on these elite sleepers can reveal the secrets of efficient sleep and thus benefit the rest of the population.
“We’re still in the discovery process trying to find as many pieces of the puzzle as we can. What we have are these families, and in each family we can identify a gene and a genetic variant, and show that those genes are behind these traits.” Ptacek assures the British chain.
In a recent study, genes associated with “natural short sleep” were introduced into mice suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In this way, they managed to make the animals more resilient and improve their quality of life.
“This is very interesting because it suggests that we can use this biological knowledge for therapeutic uses, not only in relation to neurodegenerative diseases, but also psychiatric diseases, diabetes, obesity, many cancers”, predicts the researcher.
