Could a gene be controlling our sleep habits?
30/11/2011
It's no secret that some people need to spend longer in bed than others, but the reason for this has often remained something of a mystery. Margaret Thatcher famously claimed that she could function on a mere four hours in bed, a theory that has long baffled those who need plenty of shut-eye.
However, researchers at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich believe they have found the answer in the form of a gene known as ABCC9. The same gene has previously been linked to diabetes and heart disease, but scientists now think it has a role to play in rest.
More than 4,000 people from all over Europe were asked to fill in questionnaires about their sleeping habits, which were then cross-referenced with their gene patterns. In many instances, people who had two copies of the ABCC9 gene were found to spend less time in the Land of Nod than those with just one.
The team were especially interested to find that the gene is likewise present in fruitflies, where it performs a similar function in deciding how much sleep it needs. One of the study authors, Till Roenneberg, said: "It is very encouraging for us that ABCC9 also affects the nocturnal sleep period in flies. This tells us that the genetic control of sleep duration may well be based on similar mechanisms in a wide range of highly diverse species."
Some connection was also found between sleep duration and other conditions such as heart disease, which the team said could be determined by an underlying molecular mechanism. When the function of the ABCC9 homolog was blocked in the nervous system of the flies, the duration of its sleep was reduced.
It seems that the Iron Lady may not be alone in surviving on four hours' sleep - if only we could all manage on so little rest!
Posted by Michael Ewing
