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from the does-it-drip-out-of-their-ears? dept.
Stony Brook University researchers imaged rodent brains and found that a lateral sleeping position more effectively removed "brain waste":
Sleeping in the lateral, or side position, as compared to sleeping on one's back or stomach, may more effectively remove brain waste and prove to be an important practice to help reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurological diseases, according to researchers at Stony Brook University.
By using dynamic contrast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to image the brain's glymphatic pathway, a complex system that clears wastes and other harmful chemical solutes from the brain, Stony Brook University researchers Hedok Lee, PhD, Helene Benveniste, MD, PhD, and colleagues, discovered that a lateral sleeping position is the best position to most efficiently remove waste from the brain. In humans and many animals the lateral sleeping position is the most common one. The buildup of brain waste chemicals may contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological conditions. Their finding is published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
[...] "It is interesting that the lateral sleep position is already the most popular in human and most animals – even in the wild – and it appears that we have adapted the lateral sleep position to most efficiently clear our brain of the metabolic waste products that built up while we are awake," says Dr. Nedergaard. "The study therefore adds further support to the concept that sleep subserves a distinct biological function of sleep and that is to 'clean up' the mess that accumulates while we are awake. Many types of dementia are linked to sleep disturbances, including difficulties in falling asleep. It is increasing acknowledged that these sleep disturbances may accelerate memory loss in Alzheimer's disease. Our finding brings new insight into this topic by showing it is also important what position you sleep in," she explained.
Dr. Benveniste cautioned that while the research team speculates that the human glymphatic pathway will clear brain waste most efficiency when sleeping in the lateral position as compared to other positions, testing with MRI or other imaging methods in humans are a necessary first step.
Extracellular aggregates are #6 on the SENS aging damage checklist, and all you have to do to get rid of them is sleep on your side (allegedly, or if you are a rat).
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @08:21PM
First, they didn't actually measure any metabolic waste products. They injected various labelled compounds into the brain and estimated how long it took to clear out. Second, I wonder how they know what an "important" (as opposed to statistically significant) difference in clearance rates would be.
Third, in figure 3 and figure 6 (where they report the clearance rates) the difference is between prone and supine or lateral positions. In other words, the rats/mice laying on their backs or sides were similar. The rats laying on their stomach were different. I cannot figure out from the paper why they try to make this about lateral sleeping. But we see that they had to use a different head holding device for the prone rats:
So other things are going on that may affect the MRI signals rather than the sleeping position, but they jump to the conclusion it must be their preferred explanation. Just because the null hypothesis is false doesn't make your theory true. Everyone knows this but it is ignored in nearly 100% of medical research reports.
It really is bizarre how they focus on the lateral sleeping when the data instead makes it appear prone sleeping is the special case. Perhaps just so they can make the comments about "a lot of animals sleep on their sides and this explains it".