# Do we really need sleep to cleanse the brain of toxins? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 14, 2017, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433 "2017-04-14T06:44:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/21 "2017-04-15T20:56:15Z")
Oh. Some do refer to amyloid beta oligomers as potential “neurotoxins” when positing a role for them in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease. “Neurotoxin” in this case has a very specific meaning of interference with functional neurotransmission, not just any potentially harmful metabolic byproduct. Personally I think even that usage is sloppy and adds confusion as almost any normal neurotransmitter or medication that impacts neurotransmission could be a neurotoxin depending on its amount. Even amyloid beta peptides apparently have some normal physiologic function in learning and memory at low concentrations. Just to belabor the point: not every substance that has potential toxicity is a toxin and most potentially harmful metabolic byproducts are not considered “toxins” even though at sufficient concentration they may have toxic impacts. Now as to the potential role of lack of sleep in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease, specifically as a primary factor … I have no expertise but it seems unlikely to me. I also have no knowledge about the density of the elephant brain. Do you have a link to share about that? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/22 "2017-04-15T22:43:07Z")
AFAIK nobody has figured out \*why \*we sleep really, not yet. We’ve figured out many mechanisms that happen during sleep, but why they can’t be replaced by e.g. vitamin supplements or protein shots and the like, we don’t know. It’s quite obvious we _need_ sleep, since when we go without we go stir fry crazy and then (eventually) pass out. But why ? Fuck knows. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/23 "2017-04-15T22:48:33Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > The more interesting question for me is , why do we dream? The consensus, I believe, is that dreams are the byproduct of the brain turning short-term memory (i.e. what happened today, what you learned, what you felt) into long-term memories which are kept… elsewhere, elsehow ? Maybe ? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/24 "2017-04-16T01:21:56Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It is “controversial” because, _no_, that is _not_ what “toxins” in a biological context generally means (I’ve given my reputable cite, care to give yours?). [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxin) actually has a good discussion of what toxins are and are not. Referring to metabolic byproducts that if not adequately cleared can have adverse impact as “toxins” is just an incorrect use of the term. > > It is also controversial because of [use of the word “toxin” by the woo-masters](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxins-the-new-evil-humours/) selling various products and treatments to “cleanse” and “detoxify” us of them. > > Lastly, no the concept that sleep shrinks neurons to wash these metabolic by-products away is _not_ generally agreed upon. This one article in _Science_ in 2013 documenting this shrinkage with consequent increased clearance rate by the glymphatic system occurring in mice is suggestive and it is at this point an interesting novel concept. The hypothesis that the sleep disruptions seen early in Alzheimer Disease is not just an early sign of the pathology but possibly a contributor to the pathology as well is at this point just beginning to be explored. It may be true or may not be, way too soon to say. It took me almost 5 seconds of googling to find a NIH site that uses the phrase ‘toxins’ to describe what is removed from the brain during sleep. granted it isn’t a scientific study, but it is the NIH. Enjoy. I was not aware that ‘toxins’ was a controversial concept in the medical community. [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/25 "2017-04-16T02:03:08Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Yes, I think most times you hear someone on-line use the word “toxins”, that person thinks the way to get rid of them is to pour coffee up your ass. Ah, my hottest SIL dated a chiropractor fond of coffee enemas. I never offered to help. As to the OP, all I know is that I need two hours of sleep every two days to not hallucinate. I know this because we had colicky twins who were my job from the moment I got home from work until the moment I left for work. Didn’t think that was fair, but what did I know? I had that angelic kid I called Elvis to help me, though Wife’s grandma without eyes was no help at all. I am thankful they didn’t visit me at work. It would be hard to explain. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/26 "2017-04-16T02:44:44Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > FFI is fatal, but I ‘think’ that is the only fatal form of insomnia. I’ve asked around on this board, and there are several people who are in their 60s and 70s who only sleep 10-20 hours a week who are still alive. So there are people who have lifelong severe insomnia who make it to their senior years. > > it is my understanding that show insomnia causes death have two major criticisms. > > 1. Those studies were done on rats and mice, who are not the same as humans. > 2. Those studies were done on animals that were capable of sleep and wanted to sleep, but were being kept awake by external factors (electric shocks, drugs, physical nudging, etc). This is not the same as someone who is able and willing to sleep, but whose body will not let them. An additional data point, from the book [**Sleep Thieves**](https://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Thieves-Stanley-Coren-ebook/dp/B00333NCVU/), after it discusses rat sleep deprivation experiments that ended with the death of the rats, and then moves on to human sleep deprivation studies: > [@](#): > > A truly frightening picture of how sleep deprivation has been used as torture can be extracted from a series of communications that appeared in a torture victim’s support and news group on the Internet. Let’s focus on one person’s account, which unfolded in several messages over a period of about 2 weeks: > > > [@](#): > > > > _We were all very frightened. We expected to be beaten. They slapped us and hit us with sticks. They wrapped the sticks in wet cloths. They told us that this was so that they would not leave marks on our bodies. They took away our clothes and stood us in a room. Next they made us do plantón…_ > > > > _For us plantón was to stand in one place and not move and not sleep. We could not talk. If we talked they would come in and hit us. Then they would make us stand with our arms out, like a cross, with broken bricks in our hands, for weights…_ > > > > _The worst part about plantón was the no sleep. I do not know how long we stood without sleep. All of the windows were covered, so I never saw day or night. There was a bright light on all the time. Sometimes they would turn on loud music that hurt our ears. I think that I got sleep while I was standing. Sometimes I must have lay down because I wakened up on the floor. If they catch you asleep, it was bad because they did teléfono [teléfono is a form of physical torture where the victim is boxed on the ears with cupped hands, causing intense pain]…_ > > > > _After we were awake for a long time, I was afraid that my mind was ruined. Once I saw white snakes come out of the floor. They were big and they bit me. I could feel their teeth in my skin. I could feel their poison burning in me. I knew I would die from this. Later I looked but there were no marks where they bit me. This made me know that they were from my mind. This scared me even more because it showed how my mind was not working right…_ > > > > _With no sleep I think Carlos had a bad thing. He saw something. He was crying all the time and saying that they were eating him. Sometimes he would punch things in the air. Soon he started falling asleep anyway. They would hurt him to make him stay awake. It didn’t work much. They had to be there all the time. Then Viejo [apparently, the nickname of one of the guards] said Carlos was cold. When they get cold they always die, he said. Him and the doctor left Carlos on the floor. I could see that he was asleep. I thought he would be OK with sleep. After what looked like a long time sleeping, he stopped breathing. They took him away…_ > > The hallucinations and the fear of losing one’s mind that this person experienced are all part of the pattern that we have come to expect in cases of extreme sleep deprivation. But what about Carlos’s death? Undoubtedly, the beatings and abuse contributed to it, but the guard’s comments about Carlos being cold and about how cold sleep-deprived torture victims always die remind us of Rechtschaffen’s sleep-deprived rats, whose ability to maintain their body temperature appeared to be lost a short time before they died. Sadly, there is no reference for this lengthy quote. ETA: As an aside, that Kindle book is riddled with OCR and formatting errors. Grr. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/27 "2017-04-16T02:58:56Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > It took me almost 5 seconds of googling to find a NIH site that uses the phrase ‘toxins’ to describe what is removed from the brain during sleep. granted it isn’t a scientific study, but it is the NIH. Enjoy. I was not aware that ‘toxins’ was a controversial concept in the medical community. > > [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep) Yes that NIH article is specifically referencing a study that measured clearance of beta-amyloid, which as _just mentioned above_ some will indeed call a neurotoxin in reference to a hypothesis of Alzheimer disease pathogenesis. There are _few_ other endogenously created compounds that are hypothesized to function as neurotoxins in specific brain diseases, but only a very few, and none definitive. Even beta-amyloid’s place in Alzheimer pathogenesis is not completely accepted. Really “toxins” is _not_ so controversial in the medical community: it is completely uncontroversial that many byproducts of metabolism may be toxic to cells above certain concentrations and are not toxins. No controversy at all. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/28 "2017-04-16T03:32:02Z")
I need 8-9 hours as even just 7 hours of sleep I’m pretty groggy and cloudy minded all day and nothing but sleep seems to help. I’m horrible on little sleep, especially my memory. ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2017, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/29 "2017-04-25T09:49:34Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I was not aware that ‘toxins’ was a controversial concept in the medical community. > > [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep) It’s not, and “quantum” isn’t a dirty word in the physics community. When non-experts use it though, an alarm goes off. It doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it’s just sensible to be on high alert. I’ve known plenty of woo merchants, and to them, “toxins” seems to be an updated, socially acceptable synonym for “evil spirits”. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433/30 "2017-04-27T21:06:25Z")
I dont know about Woo, but i know if i dont have sleep, toxin quantities of heavy metals build up in my eyelids (namely Lead) and prevent the nerves there from keeping the lids open. Sleeping cleanses those toxins and my eyelids work again. 😃 I will happily take that Woo over any suggestion of pumping coffee tea or soda up my ass. We need sleep to avoid becoming autonomic homicidal machines. Kidding aside, running around on sleep deprivation gets kind of scary, you do things like drive 60 miles in heavy traffic and not remember parking at the other end. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-really-need-sleep-to-cleanse-the-brain-of-toxins/784433.md?page=1)