Originally published January 3 2006
Older women can fight off inflammation with lots of sleep and a strong social life
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Dr. Elliot Friedman, from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, oversaw the research that determined two factors were instrumental in keeping a harmful protein known as interleukin-6 at a minimum in the bodies of older women, and those factors were long periods of sleep and good quality social relationships.
New research shows that aging women who sleep well and/or have strong social ties have lower levels of interleukin-6, an immune system protein that promotes inflammation and that tends to increase with age.
Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has been linked to a variety of diseases including osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer.
People who have relatively high levels of IL-6 are at greater risk for these diseases.
Friedman, from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and colleagues examined the interplay between social engagement, sleep quality, and blood levels of IL-6 in 74 women between the ages of 61 and 90.
The team reports their research in the early online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Our goal was to find out if there are psychological factors that might protect people against high levels of IL-6 as they age and we had two interesting findings," Friedman told Reuters Health.
"First, we found that sleep quality and social relationships appear to be protective against high levels of IL-6, even after accounting for other factors that could affect IL-6 levels, such as chronic illness, obesity, and smoking," he reported.
Women who slept well had low levels of IL-6, as did women who reported strong social relationships, Friedman further explained.
That is, IL-6 levels were only higher in women who slept poorly and who reported poor quality social relationships.
"I would have expected an additive effect: that is having both good sleep and good social ties would be better than having one or the other, and having one would be better than having neither."
The fact that good social ties can compensate for poor sleep, and vice versa, suggests a more complex relationship between these psychological and biological factors -- "which also means that we have lots more exciting work to do to figure out why this is," Friedman said.
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