Treating This Sleep Issue Could Help Slow Down Biological Aging, New Study Suggests
A rough night's sleep can certainly make you feel like you've aged the next day. But if you're one of the 25 to 30 million Americans who reportedly struggle with insomnia, the effects may go deeper than next-day exhaustion: Past research suggests that insomnia and insufficient sleep may accelerate biological aging.
But what if treating insomnia could actually slow down that process?
A recent study published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity looked at just that—and the results are encouraging.
The researchers' approach
Researchers from UCLA analyzed data and blood samples from 92 adults aged 60 and older who had participated in a previous randomized controlled trial for insomnia. Participants had received either eight weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia or sleep education therapy.
As explained by UCLA , insomnia-focused cognitive behavioral therapy "involves structured treatment meant to target thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate insomnia, usually performed over multiple sessions with a trained clinician." Meanwhile, sleep education therapy is described as involving "general, informational content about sleep and healthy sleep habits, without the behavioral techniques."
The researchers then collected blood samples before treatment and again about two to three years later. Using those samples, they looked for patterns of DNA methylation, essentially chemical changes to DNA that can be used to estimate biological aging.
They used three different measures known as epigenetic clocks: DunedinPACE, GrimAge, and PCPhenoAge. DunedinPACE measures the pace, or speed, at which the body is aging, while the other two look at how old someone's body appears biologically compared with the actual age.
How cognitive behavioral therapy mattered
The researchers found that patients who received cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia showed a slower pace of biological aging (as estimated by DunedinPACE) than those who received sleep education therapy. However, they found no significant difference between the groups for GrimAge or PCPhenoAge. Overall, the results suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy may slow the pace of biological aging, but the benefit wasn't observed across all three measures, meaning more research is needed.
Cognitive behavioral therapy also helped participants experience remission from insomnia (34%) versus those who had sleep education therapy (13%).
The researchers note that the findings may be especially important for older adults, as our bodies can become less resilient to stressors like sleep loss. That means insomnia may take a greater toll—and treating it effectively may become even more essential as we age.
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