Lack of sleep raises common cold risk: study

People who get less than seven hours of sleep at night have a three times higher risk of catching a cold than people who sleep eight hours or more, according to a study

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania studied 153 people by documenting their sleep habits for two weeks and then administered nasal drops that contained the cold-causing rhinovirus.

A possible explanation for the link between sleep and cold susceptibility was "that sleep disturbance influences the regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, histamines and other symptom mediators that are released in response to infection," the study authors wrote.

Previous research has linked sleep deprivation to reduced immune function, but there has been limited evidence that lack of sleep increased the risk of catching the common cold.

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