If you want to stay well, make sure you’re getting enough sleep.
That’s the conclusion of a new study that found that good sleep helps regulate a key component of the body’s immune system.
Specifically, it influences the environment where white blood cells known as monocytes form, develop and get ready to support the immune function, a process called hematopoiesis.
“What we are learning is that sleep modulates the production of cells that are the protagonists–the main actors–of inflammation,” said senior study author Filip Swirski, director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. “Good quality sleep reduces that inflammatory burden.”…