#SLEEP

EVERY SNOOZE COUNTS

Losing a single night’s sleep could affect the liver’s ability to process glucose and process insulin, potentially adding to the risk of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease, a study in sleep-deprived mice carried out at Toho University in Japan has found.

DREAM GENES

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have identified two genes that may regulate how much we dream. When researchers ‘turned off’ the genes in mice using genetic editing tool CRISPR the mice almost entirely stopped experiencing REM sleep – the period of sleep in mammals and birds that’s accompanied by rapid movements of the eyes and the tendency to dream vividly.