Poor sleep decreases vaccine effectiveness, especially for men, new study

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13-03-2023, 23:00

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INA - SOURCES

Sleeping less than six hours the night before you get the shot may limit your body’s response to the vaccine, reducing protection against the virus or bacteria, according to a new study.

“Good sleep not only amplifies but may also extend the duration of protection of the vaccine,” said senior author Eve Van Cauter, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago’s Department of Medicine, in a statement.

But there was one odd detail in the study’s findings: The impact of poor sleep on immune response to a vaccine was only scientifically relevant in men.

“Research that used objective measures of sleep deprivation, such as that of a sleep lab, found a decrease in the ability to respond to the vaccine that was particularly and statistically significant in males, but not females,” said study coauthor Dr. Michael Irwin, distinguished professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine.