How sleep supercharges your immune system | Roger Seheult
Get the full length version of this episode as a podcast.
This episode will make a great companion for a long drive.
The BDNF Protocol Guide
An essential checklist for cognitive longevity — filled with specific exercise, heat stress, and omega-3 protocols for boosting BDNF. Enter your email, and we'll deliver it straight to your inbox.
Sleep is essential for immune health, and fragmented or insufficient sleep can have profound impacts on viral immunity. For example, in one study, virally challenged people were more likely to develop the common cold when they were sleep-deprived. Furthermore, people who got more sleep before being immunized had a better immune response and higher antibody titers. In this clip, Dr. Roger Seheult discusses the importance of getting enough sleep for proper immune functioning and resisting viral infections.
Dr. Seheult: Yeah, so sleep is a very complicated topic because everybody may have problems sleeping, but it's for a myriad of different reasons. It could be medical reasons, it could be just, you know, maladaptive behaviors. But the point I want to make is that sleep and the immune system are intimately connected. We know for a fact that people who get more sleep before they get an immunization have a better immune response with higher antibody titers to, for instance, the flu vaccine. We know that when people are challenged with a virus, they actually did this study where they put rhinovirus into subjects' noses on purpose. You know, living on a college campus people will do any study for very little money, so it's easy to get those kind of students.
But this is what they did. They subjected them to rhinovirus, and they put it into their nose, and they waited to see how many people came down with the common cold. And when they will look back and saw what their sleep habits were, it was a five to seven-fold difference. If you looked at those people that got seven or more hours of sleep per night versus those that got less, and whether or not they had a good sleep efficiency. So sleep efficiency is how many hours you're actually sleeping, divided by the number of hours that you're in bed. And so you have good sleep efficiency, you've got good hours of sleep, so good quality, good quantity, your risk of getting any kind of virus, like rhinovirus, adenovirus, those sorts of things, is cut by five to seven-fold.
That's a massive number when you consider what we're trying to do to reduce the incidence of COVID-19 right now with vaccinations and things of that nature. That just a good night's sleep can have that much of an impact. It's not a cure, but it's certainly somewhere to start.
A class of viruses that causes a wide range of illnesses, including colds, pinkeye, and diarrhea. Adenoviruses are commonly used as delivery systems for vaccines because they induce robust and sustained innate and adaptive immune responses. Adenovirus vaccines are currently used against malaria, HIV, TB, and COVID-19.
An infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19, or coronavirus disease 2019, was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. The disease manifests primarily as a lower respiratory illness, but it can affect multiple organ systems, including the cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, and renal systems. Symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, and loss of smell and taste. Some infected persons, especially children, are asymptomatic. Severe complications of COVID-19 include pneumonia, sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, kidney failure, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, and cytokine storm. Treatments currently involve symptom management and supportive care. Mortality varies by country and region, but approximately 6 percent of people living in the United States who are diagnosed with COVID-19 expire.[1] 1
Also known as cyclic AMP, or cAMP, a cell signaling molecule that regulates many aspects of cellular metabolism and function. Increases in intracellular levels of cAMP impair aspects of innate immune functions, including the generation of inflammatory mediators and the phagocytosis and destruction of pathogens.
An essential mineral present in many foods. Iron participates in many physiological functions and is a critical component of hemoglobin. Iron deficiency can cause anemia, fatigue, shortness of breath, and heart arrhythmias.
A large class of viruses that cause the common cold. Rhinoviruses cause more than half of all upper respiratory infections.
The highest level of intake of a given nutrient likely to pose no adverse health effects for nearly all healthy people. As intake increases above the upper intake level, the risk of adverse effects increases.
Member only extras:
Learn more about the advantages of a premium membership by clicking below.
Hear new content from Rhonda on The Aliquot, our member's only podcast
Listen in on our regularly curated interview segments called "Aliquots" released every week on our premium podcast The Aliquot. Aliquots come in two flavors: features and mashups.
- Hours of deep dive on topics like fasting, sauna, child development surfaced from our enormous collection of members-only Q&A episodes.
- Important conversational highlights from our interviews with extra commentary and value. Short but salient.
Sleep News
- High-intensity exercise in the evening may be associated with greater reductions of the hunger stimulating hormones
- The lullaby of the sun: the role of vitamin D in sleep disturbance. - PubMed - NCBI
- Microbiome Analysis Powers Insights to Improve Sleep
- Older people who have less slow-wave deep sleep were shown to have higher levels of tau tangles in the brain which is linked to Alzheimer's disease.
- Caffeine that was given to people 3 hours before normal bedtime caused a 40-minute shift in the body's internal clock.
