This week, the British weekly New Scientist curls up in the arms of Morpheus. Who would not want to be in the place of this blessed person represented on the cover of the edition dated January 25? Lying on a ball of soft white dandelion, we imagine that with the help of a breath, he would be transported like a seed to the land of dreams.
Except that in reality, “For many of us, sleeping long nights is easier said than done.”, notes the magazine. The injunctions to sleep well to be in good health make this moment even more distressing for those who have difficulty finding or maintaining it.
New Scientist explores little-known facets of sleep and takes the opportunity to debunk the preconceived idea that a night must last at least eight hours. The weekly highlights, for example, “new research that demonstrates the benefits of a more holistic approach and reveals that some of the most important things to improve your sleep don’t happen in bed, no matter how comfortable it is.”
Hormones et microbiome intestinal
Thus the intestinal microbiome plays a significant role: if a 2023 study showed that the diversity of flora is associated with better quality of sleep, another observed that paradoxical sleep disorders could be linked to an imbalance of bacteria species present in the digestive tract.
-And last year, a clinical trial involving 89 adults with poor sleep quality showed “that probiotic supplementation for 8 weeks improved sleep quality, according to both objective and subjective criteria”, reports New Scientist in another article.
Hormones, the best known being melatonin, are not left out, with a two-way relationship. They direct and influence sleep, which itself has an effect on hormonal production. Example from this other article: Researchers conducted a sleep deprivation experiment on male and female volunteers who slept only four hours per night for four consecutive nights. “They observed an increase in ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, in men and a fall in GLP-1, a hormone that reduces appetite, in women. Enough to understand why a lack of sleep goes hand in hand with weight gain.
[…] Read more on International Mail
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