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HOUSTON – (Nov. 9, 2018) – People who have recently lost their spouse are more likely to suffer from sleep disturbances that exacerbate levels of inflammation in the body, according to a new study from Rice University and from Northwestern University. These high levels of inflammation can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and death.
The study entitled "Bereavement, sleep disorders and self-reported inflammation: results of the HEART project" was recently published in Psychosomatic medicine. He compared self-reported sleep patterns by newly declared widowers to a control group. Both groups had sleep disturbances, such as insomnia.
The researchers found that the link between sleep disorders and inflammation was two to three times higher among bereaved wives. The inflammation was measured by the level of pro-inflammatory cytokines, designed to combat short-term diseases, but related to the long-term risk of health problems, including cardiovascular disease.
Corresponding author, Diana Chirinos, Assistant Professor of Research in Preventive Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, who began investigating the subject as a Rice Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Rice's Department of Psychological Sciences, indicates that the study suggests that those in mourning are more likely. the negative effects of a bad sleep on health.
"The death of a spouse is an extremely stressful event and they have to adapt to life without the support of the spouse," she said. "Add sleep disturbances to their already stressful situation and you double the stressor.As a result, their immune system is more overactive."
Chirinos said that she and her fellow researchers already knew that widowers had higher levels of inflammation. Earlier work has shown that in the first six months after the death of the spouse, the risk of widow and widower death was 41% higher, and 53% of this increased risk was due to cardiovascular disease. However, they wanted to find the specific cause.
"Now we know that it's not grief itself, it's the sleep disorders that stem from this grief," Chirinos said.
Chris Fagundes, assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice and principal investigator of the HEART project, said that this discovery is a new revelation of the study of the impact of human behavior and activities on inflammation and that she adds to the growing body of work on how grief can affect health. His early work has shown why widowers have a higher risk of cardiovascular problems and premature death by comparing their inflammation to matched controls.
"While working in my lab as a postdoctoral fellow, Diana did an excellent job incorporating her expertise in sleep data collection into this project," he said.
Ultimately, researchers hope that the results will help design better health interventions for people suffering from loss.
The study included 101 elderly people on average 67 years old. Half were in mourning (identified by the obituaries), the others being the control group.
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