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Recovery sleep may not prevent adverse hormonal effects from sleep deprivation
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Five days of restricted sleep led to increased interleukin-6 levels among young, healthy men and women. Although 2 nights of extended recovery sleep reduced these levels, not all deficits caused by sleep loss improved, according to researchers.
Previous studies have shown that 1 week of mild sleep restriction led to elevated proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha in men and changes to cortisol and IL-6 secretion in men and women.
“It appears that 2 days of extended recovery sleep over the weekend reverses the impact of 1 workweek of mild sleep curtailment on daytime sleepiness, fatigue and IL-6 levels and reduced cortisol levels,” Slobodanka Pejovic, MD, of the Sleep Research and Treatment Center at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “However, 2 recovery nights were not sufficient to improve performance, suggesting that complete performance recovery following 1 workweek of sleep restriction may require more than 2 days of extended sleep.”
The researchers conducted a sleep laboratory experiment on 30 healthy, young men (n=16) and women (n=14; aged 18-34 years) for 13 nights, including 4 baseline nights (8 hours) and 6 sleep-restricted nights (6 hours), and 3 recovery nights (10 hours).
At baseline, women demonstrated a significantly lower amount of stage 1 rapid eye movement (P<.05) and stage 2 (P<.05) sleep, and greater amounts of slow wave sleep percentage compared with men (P<.01), researchers wrote.
Serial 24-hour cortisol levels during restriction did not differ compared with baseline levels (P=.32), according to data. Levels were lower, however, after recovery (0.37 mcg/dL vs. 0.75 mcg/dL; P=.04).
“Additionally, there was a significant effect in terms of the circadian secretory pattern of the hormone, as indicated by the significant time, and group by time interaction effects (both P<.01),” researchers wrote.
They recommend experimental studies to examine the long-term effects of a repeated sleep restriction/recovery weekly cycle.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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