Sleeping: NF-kappaB, Women, Inflammation and Sleep

by Dr. John Whitcomb, Medical Director, Aurora Sinai Medical Center Wellness Institute

NF-kappaB! This is not about a campus Greek Sorority. It just sounds like one. NF-kappaB is an inflammatory protein we need to get to know. At least in our dream states. It is a mediator central to inflammation. What's inflammation? It's the process your body goes through when it's annoyed and trying to heal itself of something it doesn't like. When you get a sunburn and your skin stings and swells, that's inflammation. When you get a cut and you get a bit of redness and swelling around it, that redness is inflammation. NF-kappaB is always there in your cells, attached to an inhibitor protein that keeps it from being activated. When activated, it goes into your cell nucleus and turns on DNA. That changes the cell function dramatically as new proteins are made and new functions are carried out. Those functions are, in essence, inflammation. By measuring NF-kappaB, you can measure how activated your inflammatory response is.

Now, it's all the things that set off NF-kappaB that's interesting. For example, viruses can do it. We know that! Our nose gets stuffy, we cough and hack when we get a cold. Sunburn sets it off too. Our skin hurts. Oxidized LDLs (the bad cholesterols), free radicals (made when you eat heavy doses of sugar and white carbs), stress, bacterial infections all set off NF-kappaB. So, it's the common pathway that relates how many different processes end up being part of the picture of diseases related to chronic inflammation. What diseases are set off by inflammation? A long list! Heart disease... Alzheimer's... Cancer... arthritis... lupus... NF-kappaB is right there in the mix in many of our illnesses.

What does sleep have to do with NF-kappaB? That's what this article is about and what makes this topic so interesting. Dr. Michael Irwin at the University of California took 14 healthy volunteers and tested their sleep and how much NF-KappaB they made. A good 7 or more ours of sleep, and the NF-kappaB stayed low. But lower that sleep to 4 hours, and measure it and guess what happened? The women all had a sharp spike in their NF-kappaB. The men didn't! Almost a doubling in the women. And it recovered completely the next night if they had a good nights' sleep. Are men immune? Probably not. This was a small study. But it opens a big door.

What will work for me?

We know women get inflammatory illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis at a higher rate than men. But guys get them too. This connects the common pathway to explain how sleep deprivation can be a problem. I'm trying to get at least 7 hours of sleep. If I wake up at 4:30 a.m., I just lay back down again. My subsequent sleep may not be as deep as the first 5 hours, but I do feel more rested when I finally do get up. Try it for yourself. Your can lie there counting little NF-kappaBs jumping over a toga party. It'll put your back to sleep.

Reference: Biological Psychiatry, Sept 15th 2008