A good night's sleep really does a sick body good, new research says.
Stanford University research with fruit flies reveals that the immune system fights invading bacteria the hardest at night and the least during the day. The findings were to be presented Sunday at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting, in San Francisco.
"These results suggest that immunity is stronger at night, consistent with the hypothesis that circadian proteins upregulate restorative functions such as specific immune responses during sleep, when animals are not engaged in metabolically costly activities," Stanford researcher Mimi Shirasu-Hiza said in a news release issued by the conference organizers. ~ Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2008
In this time of frequent cough and colds, it is good to let good old, restful sleep to heal us.
