In Brief: Case Western Links Insomnia To More Aggressive Breast Cancers

Researchers at Case Western University and its affiliated hospital in Cleveland have linked lack of sleep to more aggressive tumors in breast cancer victims.

The research team examined more than 400 post-menopausal breast cancer victims and queried about their sleep habits. Those women who had reported less than six hours of sleep a night on average were more likely to have tumors with a genetic makeup more likely to make them recur.

“This is the first study to suggest that women who routinely sleep fewer hours may develop more aggressive breast cancers compared with women who sleep longer hours,” said Cheryl Thompson, a Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and they study’s lead author. “We found a strong correlation between fewer hours of sleep per night and worse recurrence scores…this suggests that lack of sufficient sleep may cause more aggressive tumors, but more research will need to be done to verify this finding and understand the causes of this association.”

The findings of the study were published in the most recent issue of the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.