Spending a penny overnight is never good news. There is an increased risk that you may step on a piece of Lego, encounter a burglar or even hear your parents having sex.
Of course, some kids tend to do it in their actual bed and turn a pajama party into a wet t-shirt contest, while worrying their parents (after googling the Macdonald Triad theory) that they might be a potential serial killer.
In adulthood, such behaviors are rare unless you have a serious drinking problem. But feeling the need to urinate is still bad news, as it is an indicator that you increase your risk of developing dementia, according to a study from Aarhus University and Stanford University in the USA.
21 percent higher risk
The focus of the study was men over the age of 60 with a benign enlargement of the prostate, who typically have to get up several times during the night to urinate.
The study showed that such men had a 21 percent higher risk of developing dementia than men of the same age who do not have prostate problems. The risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease increases by 16 percent.
In total, it assessed registrations of 1.4 million men in Denmark over a ten-year period.
Like a washing machine
The disruption of a night’s sleep is not good news, as it can lead to an accumulation of waste products in the brain, the study’s authors claim. For example, the repeated presence of the protein fragment beta-amyloid in the brains of the affected men suggested this.
Sleeping, the study explains, is like turning on the brain’s washing machine. Meningeal fluid flushes the lymphatic system, leaves via nerves and lymph vessels and takes the waste products with it.
Interrupt sleep cycles – most people tend to have two or three, depending on whether they sleep closer to six or nine hours – and flushing does not work properly.
More help needed
“As I see it, the numbers point to the importance of helping these men get as consistent a night’s sleep as possible – not least to protect them as best they can from developing dementia,” concluded one of the study’s authors, Professor Mette Nรธrgaard from Aarhus University, speaks to BT.
“We expect that the same group of women may also have an increased risk of dementia.”
The results of the study, which was supported by the Lundbeck Foundation, have been published in the scientific journal EClinicalMedicin.
Source: The Nordic Page