Chronic sleep deprivation may be a hidden factor behind the rapid increase in the number of cancer diagnoses among young people. Scientists have long assumed that patients who regularly suffer from insomnia have a higher tendency to develop tumours. A new large-scale study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago has demonstrated for the first time a direct link between insomnia and cancer using millions of medical records.
A mysterious epidemic: why cancer is getting younger«
Over the past three decades, the global medical community has been noticing an alarming trend: the number of cancer cases in patients under the age of 50 has jumped by almost 80 per cent. Every year, more than a million people of young working age die from this disease. About. reports Daily Mail.
For a long time, oncologists have been looking for a single cause of this surge, but most experts agree that there is no universal factor. At the same time, sleep disorders have become a real disease of civilisation. For example, in the UK, almost a fifth of the adult population is chronically sleep deprived, and one in three people (about 16 million citizens) suffers from clinical insomnia. It is this factor that scientists have highlighted as a possible trigger for early oncology.
Results of a large-scale study: which organs are under threat
A large-scale research project led by researchers from Jefferson Health New Jersey and the Ochsner MD Anderson Cancer Centre analysed a huge amount of data. Scientists compared the medical conditions of more than 413,000 people with diagnosed insomnia and more than 18 million people who did not have sleep problems.
The results were staggering: people with chronic sleep disorders were significantly more likely to develop four types of cancer early in life:
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Ovarian cancer: Patients with insomnia had a 57 per cent higher risk of being diagnosed with this condition within five years of the onset of persistent sleep disorders. By the way, about 7,500 such cases are recorded annually in the UK alone.
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Breast cancer: People with insomnia were more likely to develop a breast tumour more than three times.
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Bowel cancer (colorectal): The risk of this diagnosis was approximately doubled.
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Uterine cancer: It also demonstrated a strong correlation with a lack of nighttime rest.
Hormonal disruption and the body's chain reaction
Dr Rowan Miller, a consultant oncologist at University College London (UCL), notes that poor sleep quality may explain the mysterious increase in the incidence among young people who do not have traditional behavioural risk factors such as smoking, alcohol abuse or obesity.
«The modern lifestyle has changed dramatically, and poor sleep is one of the main hidden threats. It directly affects the level of hormones in the body, which can trigger uncontrolled cell division and significantly increase the risk of developing tumours,» explains Dr Miller.
In addition to the purely biological effect on hormonal levels, there is also a behavioural chain reaction. Dr. David Gurley, head of the Better Sleep Clinic in Bristol, emphasises the reverse: when a person is chronically sleep deprived, other good habits are destroyed. A tired body refuses to exercise, a person starts to eat worse (choosing fast carbohydrates) and avoids socialising. All this cumulatively weakens the immune system. In addition, sometimes it is the latent development of cancer in the body, which has not yet been diagnosed by doctors, that begins to secretly destroy the patient's sleep architecture.
Experts call the findings extremely significant, but emphasise that the study of the link between insomnia and cancer requires further in-depth clinical research to develop new prevention protocols.
