Regular or unintentional daytime napping in older age has been linked to an almost 1.5-fold increase in the likelihood of developing dementia compared with napping rarely, Medical News Today reports, according to infohub.kz.
Researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University analyzed data from 995 Medicare participants aged 65 and older. The health of these older Americans was monitored for up to ten years as part of the National Health and Aging Trends Study. The findings were published in "The Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences".
The authors found that participants who napped almost every day or daily faced a 48% higher risk of developing dementia compared with those who napped rarely or not at all. Napping for up to 30 minutes was associated with a 40% higher risk, while unintentional falling asleep was linked to a 39% increase.
Lead author Kanin Jiang stressed that the association identified does not indicate a direct cause-and-effect relationship. Daytime napping may worsen the quality of nighttime rest or reflect inflammatory processes in the body. A change in wakefulness patterns may point to early neurodegenerative processes in the brain long before obvious memory problems appear.
Experts note that it is important for older adults to keep a consistent wake-up schedule, move more in the morning under natural light, and consult doctors promptly in cases of sudden falling asleep.