The association between sleep and general health has long been of interest to the medical community, and a new study published in JAMA Neurology led by Stanford’s Eileen Leary, Ph.D., takes a deeper dive into the topic, evaluating the impact of REM sleep quantity on overall well-being.
Michael S. Jaffee, M.D., vice chair and associate professor of neurology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, discusses this new study in an editorial in JAMA Neurology.
“Although it seems likely that REM sleep quantity is a biomarker of general health or REM sleep is decreased by disease processes that also increase mortality, rather than having a direct causal link to mortality, neurologists should remain mindful of the common clinical scenarios in which REM sleep is disturbed and follow the emerging work on sleep stage–targeted interventions closely,” Jaffee and co-authors wrote in the editorial.