Getting Goldilocks Sleep

August 28, 2022

Welcome to Issue 14 of Science Says! Our weekly newsletter where you’ll learn the latest healthy aging and C15:0 research news that our team of doctors, scientists, and experts are most excited about—without having to go search for it.

Eric and Steph
Co-Founders, Doctors, Nerds

What Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, our co-founder and author of The Longevity Nutrient and over 80 peer-reviewed scientific publications, is reading.

Healthy Aging

Sleeping Science

The American Heart Association recently published eight updated and enhanced health tips, called Life’s Essential 8, in the journal, Circulation. We are dedicating our latest round of newsletters to Life’s Essential 8.

A newly added must-do for heart health.

Instead of defining whether or not you have heart disease, Life’s Essential 8 is used to define whether or not you have heart health. Meeting all of these essential 8 goals is expected to help us not only have healthier hearts, they can enable us to live longer, healthier lives.

This week, let’s talk about:

The American Heart Association included healthy sleep on their essential list for the very first time this year (which is why Life’s Essential 7 got an upgrade this year to Life’s Essential 8). This is because an increasing number of studies have linked poor sleep to an increased risk of heart disease and all-cause mortality.

So, what is healthy sleep?

Healthy sleep is defined as routinely getting between 7 and just-under 9 hours of zzz’s every night. This is your Goldilocks-sleeping goal.

Less than seven? Unhealthy. Nine or more hours of sleep? That’s unhealthy, too.

Sleep quality is determined by several factors. In the Journal of Sleep Research, Luik et al. discuss the multidimensionality of sleep, which includes age and gender.

Age. If you are 65 years or older, you are less likely to get the Goldilocks zone of sleep. Some people get too little sleep, while others get too much. That said, younger people are more likely to report poor quality of sleep.
Gender. Women are more likely to report difficulties initiating sleep, maintaining sleep, and early-morning awakenings compared to men. When sleep is monitored, however, men are actually more likely to have lower-quality, fragmented sleep compared to women, who have more consolidated sleep.

Now that science has shown that just about everyone could benefit from healthier sleep, let’s talk about how.

Some (awake and) sleep tips.

Here are a few helpful tips to help you have more energy throughout the day and get a good night’s sleep:

Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter on the latest scientific studies around healthy weight.

C15:0 for deeper sleep*

While fatty15 was developed to support your long-term physical health, more studies are supporting C15:0’s role in promoting better mental health, including better sleep. In fact, the near-term benefit that most “delights-and-surprises” many fatty15 customers is improved sleep.

Back in 2020, we published in Nature’s Scientific Reports that C15:0 naturally activates PPAR-alpha receptors. Here’s why that matters – a study in the journal PPAR Research showed that PPAR-alpha activators can help reset your circadian clock, resulting in deeper, higher-quality sleep. This was further backed by a separate research team, who showed that PPAR-alpha activators helped with circadian clock control.

If you are getting sleepy by the end of this newsletter, there may be an added benefit of reading the science below to help you snooze.

Sweet dreams, everyone.