Eli5: Why do we need to sleep so much, what happens in the body when asleep that cannot happen while normal resting or relaxing? Or is it just for the brain?
In: Biology
I can’t believe no one is talking about the recent fly study findings.
Basically, fruit flies are a surprisingly good model for human sleep considering they aren’t even mammals.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18591491/
So, a study was done on them to find a way to keep them alive without sleep, as similarly to humans and many other animals, severe sleep deprivation leads inevitably to death.
They found that just before dying, there was a large build up in toxic compounds in their gut.
More interestingly, they found by neutralising these toxins in the gut, the flies would live normal lifespans without sleep, implying that the cause of death was actually these compounds.
Obviously sleep is still baffling, but I think this is a very interesting step in the direction of figuring out what is going on.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/06/study-reveals-guts-role-in-causing-death-by-sleep-deprivation/
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