Research news: Sleep puts colds to bed

The News:
Study: Sleep puts colds to bed
Those who got eight hours of sound rest were much less likely to get sick, despite exposure.
By Carla K. Johnson The Associated Press
Posted: 01/13/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
Updated: 01/13/2009 02:24:04 AM MST
CHICAGO — Fluff up the pillows and pull up the covers. Preventing the common cold may be as easy as getting more sleep.
Researchers paid healthy adults $800 to have cold viruses sprayed up their noses, then wait five days in a hotel to see whether they got sick. Habitual eight-hour sleepers were much less likely to get sick than those who slept seven hours or less or slept fitfully.
"The longer you sleep, the better off you are, the less susceptible you are to colds," said lead author Sheldon Cohen, who studies the effects of stress on health at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University.
Prior research has suggested that sleep boosts the immune system at the cell level. This is the first study to show small sleep disturbances
increasing the risk of getting sick, said Dr. Michael Irwin, who researches immune response at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was not involved in the study. Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the Archives of Internal Medicine.