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I think the other key question is causality - do people who get less deep sleep develop these diseases, or do people who are developing these diseases get less deep sleep, or both?

I wonder if they could design an interventional study in which people who are predisposed to dementia are given more sleep or melatonin, and then demonstrate whether it protects against the disease.

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The study does not prove causality: it is right in the title of the paper: Association Between Slow-Wave Sleep Loss and Incident Dementia.

Sorry for the rant: we should not share university press release articles, they are always clickbait. Just share the research directly.

dang I smiled when I read this comment

You're right about the journal paper, but the pop-sci title implies causation. So, for those who didn't click all the way through: There is zero proof of causation. It may well be that people getting dementia have increased problems sleeping. Or both may be caused by some third factor.

I mean one of the common correlations between dementia and 'something else' is stress, people who are stressed get dementia more often. I guess people who are not getting enough deep sleep are also stressed.

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