Could sleeping on your side reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease?

Aug 5, 2015 at 9:25 AM

We’ve been told that our sleep positions clearly plays a role when it comes to neck or back pain, but researchers have found that it could actually affect our brains and our risk for disease.

A team at Stony Brook University used MRI scans to image the brain’s glymphatic pathway, the complex system that clears wastes and other harmful chemical solutes from the brain. What they found is that the brain does a better job of clearing out this waste when we sleep laterally, on our sides. This could actually play a role in decreasing the chances of developing neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Dr. Helene Benveniste, principal investigator and a professor in the departments of anesthesiology and radiology at Stony Brook University, and her colleagues looked at anesthetized rodents and used a dynamic contrast MRI method to monitor the functioning glymphatic pathway in anesthetized rodents’ brains in three positions – lateral (side), prone (down), and supine (up).“The analysis showed us consistently that glymphatic transport was most efficient in the lateral position when compared to the supine or prone positions,” said Dr. Benveniste, according to a press release. “Because of this finding, we propose that the body posture and sleep quality should be considered when standardizing future diagnostic imaging procedures to assess CSF-ISF transport in humans and therefore the assessment of the  of damaging brain proteins that may contribute to or cause brain diseases.”

The CSF-ISF transport she mentions refers to the process when cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) filters through the brain and exchanges with interstitial fluid (ISF) to clear waste, similar to the way the body’s lymphatic system clears waste from organs.

Maiken Nedergaard, PhD is one member of the team that contributed from the University of Rochester. She had this to say about their findings:

“It is interesting that the lateral sleep position is already the most popular in human and most animals – even in the wild – and it appears that we have adapted the lateral sleep position to most efficiently clear our brain of the metabolic waste products that built up while we are awake,” says Dr. Nedergaard. “The study therefore adds further support to the concept that sleep subserves a distinct biological function of sleep and that is to ‘clean up’ the mess that accumulates while we are awake. Many types of dementia are linked to sleep disturbances, including difficulties in falling asleep. It is increasing acknowledged that these sleep disturbances may accelerate memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease. Our finding brings new insight into this topic by showing it is also important what position you sleep in.”

Clearly it will be important to do the same kind of testing on humans, but the researchers believe the results will be similar to that in the rodents.

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