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Written By: Agencies | Updated : April 27, 2014 8:06 PM IST
When you get sick, what is the first thing you should do? Pop a pill? No. Better hit the sack. Sleep as much as you can as research suggests that long naps can boost immune system and help fight infection better. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania found that in fruit flies, sleep enhances immune system response and recovery to infection. (Read: When you blink your brain takes a mini-nap!)
'It is an intuitive response to want to sleep when you get sick,' lead author Julie Williams from the university's Perelman School of Medicine was quoted as saying. The results provide new evidence of the direct effects of sleep on immune response and of the underlying mechanisms at work. In experiments on fruit flies, the researchers found the flies with more sleep showed faster and more efficient rates of clearing the bacteria from their bodies. (Read: Day-time nap an early sign of dementia)
'Increased sleep helps facilitate the immune response by increasing resistance to infection and survival after infection,' the study, appeared in the journal Sleep, said. (Read: Could your daytime nap kill you?)
Source: IANS
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