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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Not getting enough sleep won't just make you tired. It may also make you sick.
People who sleep less than seven hours at night are three times more likely to develop respiratory illness after being exposed to a cold virus, compared to those who sleep eight hours or more.
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To find their data, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh studied 153 healthy men and women whose average age was 37. Participants reported daily how many hours and how well they slept each night over a two week period. They were then given nasal drops containing rhinovirus, a common cause of the cold. After 28 days, a blood sample was taken from them to measure their antibody response.
In addition to less sleep, an individual was also more likely to develop a cold if they slept less efficiently. Those who spent less than 92 percent of their time in bed asleep were five and a half times more likely to get sick than those who had a 98 percent sleep efficiency rate. Feeling rested, however, was not linked to colds.
"When the components of clinical illness (infection and signs or symptoms) were examined separately, sleep efficiency but not sleep duration was associated with signs and symptoms of illness. However, neither was associated with infection," study authors wrote. "A possible explanation for this finding is that sleep disturbance influences the regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, histamines and other symptom mediators that are released in response to infection."
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009;169[1]:62-67
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