According to a study published in January of 2014 in the journal Cancer Research, poor sleep accelerates cancer growth, makes cancer cells more aggressive, and weakens immunity. In fact, it is the weakened immunity that leads to increasing the aggressiveness of cancer.
In this study researchers transplanted breast cancer cells into mice and then put them into two groups. In the first group they allowed the mice to sleep without interruption. In the second group they interrupted their sleep every two minutes and then compared the rate at which cancer developed in the two groups. In the second group tumors were twice as big and metastasized much faster.
They also found that there is a protein called toll-like receptor 4 that when absent neutralized the effect of interrupted sleep and stopped the aggressiveness of the cancer. The conclusion of the researches is that we need to find a way to destroy this toll-like receptor. This is another example of how silly science can get...how about simplly taking action to promote good healthy sleep rather than developing drugs that are not only expensive but also plagued by unwanted "side effects"?
