Parents often find it difficult to know if children and adolescents are getting enough sleep, but a test is looming on the horizon.
Scientists have discovered that small parts of the RNA - molecules that translate the DNA code into useful proteins - have changes in the blood of people deprived of sleep.
The team studied 111 healthy children and adolescents from eight European countries: Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Germany, Belgium, Estonia, Hungary and Sweden. The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Physiology.
The researchers said that their findings could help in the future to devise a test that can not only assess whether children are getting enough sleep, but also whether they are vulnerable to other diseases.
"The study shows for the first time that diffuse microRNAs differ between those who sleep for a short period and those who sleep normally," said Dr. Fabio Laura, of the Food Science Institute of the National Research Council in Italy and one of the study's authors.
This, he added, could allow doctors to determine if children sleep adequately with a simple blood test and use it as evidence of other aspects of their health.
Sleep is an important factor in children's health and educational achievement, and getting a little of it in later stages of life is associated with negative health outcomes such as heart disease and diabetes.