WASHINGTON — People who sleep less than seven hours a night are three times as likely to catch a cold as their more well-rested friends and neighbours, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. The study supports the theory that sleep is important to immune function, said Sheldon Cohen and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Volunteers who spent less time in bed, or who spent their time in bed tossing and turning instead of snoozing, were much more likely to catch a cold when viruses were dripped into their noses, they found. People who slept longer and more soundly resisted infection better, they reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine. ‘Although sleep’s relationship with the immune system is well-documented, this is the first evidence that even relatively minor sleep disturbances can influence the body’s reaction to cold viruses,’ Cohen said in a statement. ‘It provides yet another reason why people should make time in their schedules to get a complete night of rest.’ Cohen’s team tested 153 healthy volunteers, locking them in a hotel for five days after infecting them with a cold virus. They had been interviewed daily for the previous two […]