Do You Need a Sleep Evaluation? Consult Your Family Tree

Your family history is one of the best predictors of your long-term health and what medical challenges you will face as you age. If breast cancer runs in your family, it makes sense that you should pay attention to that area in your forties and fifties, and the same thing goes for your sleep. A number of studies have shown that sleep patterns, like other aspects of your health, are tied to your genetics. While you probably don’t know whether your grandmother was an eight-hour sleeper or a six-hour sleeper in her youth, sleep disruption has been correlated with many late-life diseases such as obesity, heart problems, and mental diseases.

If your family exhibits strong, relatively early symptoms of the following diseases, and you often feel like you aren’t getting enough rest, it’s probably time to get your sleep looked at.

Neurodegenerative Diseases

Mental difficulties are faced by many people as they age, but if disorders like Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and dementia show up in your family relatively early (before 60 years old), it could be a warning sign. Long-term sleep disruption has been linked to a variety of mental disorders, including those listed above. The exact mechanism of action isn’t known, but because these diseases are correlated with sleep disruption, it is important that you clear up at least one of your causative factors. Are you at risk for these diseases because of a genetic predisposition, or are you genetically inclined towards poor sleep, which increases your risk factor?

Cardiac Disease

Sleep disruption causes your body to become very inefficient at taking in and processing oxygen. This can be the result of a lack of quality sleep, or because of a related breathing problem such as sleep apnea. In either situation, your body tries to compensate for the restricted oxygen by constricting blood vessels and quickening resting heart rate. This leads to hypertension and, with that, a host of other problems.

If your family tree suffers from cardiac problems such as high blood pressure, chronic hypertension, or a predisposition to heart attacks and strokes, it could be a sign of inherited sleep difficulties.

Obesity

When your body is stressed due to a lack of sleep, two hormones that govern your appetite start shifting out of balance. These hormones are ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry, and leptin, which makes you feel satiated. When deprived of sleep, you often experience cravings because your body starts producing less leptin and more ghrelin, an ancient response to help keep you fueled up in what your body perceives to be a dangerous situation. Obesity can also be compounded by the metabolic inefficiencies that sleep deprivation causes. Scientific studies have demonstrated that people who are forced to sleep only four hours a night for five days exhibit chemicals in the bloodstream that indicate inefficient metabolism and high oxidative stress.

If your family tree exhibits a predisposition towards obesity, it’s important that you do everything you can to mitigate it. Though obesity is tied to sleep deprivation, it often leads to a compounding cycle where sleep apnea, caused by obesity, worsens the condition of your sleep.

The Good News

Fortunately, it’s easy to see whether or not you’re getting adequate sleep: just have it professionally evaluated! Even if you see these late-life challenges coming through your genetic history, you can mitigate these complications by addressing the risk factors behind them. If these problems persist in your family because of an inherited difficulty sleeping, then getting quality rest is a powerful step you can take to protect your future health.