Sleep affects potency of vaccines

As moms have always known, a good night’s sleep is crucial to good health — and now a new study led by a UCSF researcher shows that poor sleep can reduce the effectiveness of vaccines. The study is the first performed outside a sleep laboratory to show that sleep duration is directly tied to vaccine immune response, the authors said. The study, conducted while the UCSF researcher was a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, will appear in the August issue of the journal “SLEEP.” “With the emergence of our 24-hour lifestyle, longer working hours, and the rise in the use of technology, chronic sleep deprivation has become a way of life for many Americans,” said lead author Aric Prather, PhD, a clinical health psychologist and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at UCSF and UC Berkeley. “These findings should help raise awareness in the public health community about the clear...