If you sleep only about 6 hours per night, but you feel taking enough rest, scientists are likely to have this impression due to a mutation in one of the genes.
Experts recommend that adults usually sleep 7 hours or more, but some people get it shorter.
A study published in the Neuron Journal of Neurological Health revealed that those who sleep for a short period of time have a mutation in a gene called "ADRB1".
In 2009, a professor at the University of San Francisco, Ying Hui Fu, noticed the presence of a prominent mutation in a gene known as "DEC2", and this gene usually controls a person's biological clock.
After the publication of that study, many of those who slept for a short period of time contacted the researcher, in order to obtain clarification about their condition.
Academics took advantage of this opportunity, and decided to take advantage of the callers, and conducted a second study, in a more detailed manner.
The researchers sought to know the way in which sleep is controlled in the human body, and the goal behind this is to determine the optimal and most comfortable sleep specifications.
Researcher Fu says that understanding sleep is very important, because a person spends a third of his life, on average, falling asleep, and this is reflected in health and it is surprising that we do not have a deep knowledge of sleep.
After conducting DNA tests for the participants in the study, the results revealed the presence of a genetic mutation in a family whose members sleep for a short period of time.
When the researchers wanted to make sure that the mutation was responsible for the lack of sleep, they pulled the protein associated with the gene, which had undergone the mutation, then put it in a test tube, and then compared it to a gene that had not undergone the mutation.
The results revealed that the mutated protein was less stable in the nervous system, and thus, appeared unable to interact normally with neurons.
Nc