Sleep Aid
Insomnia often persists: study
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Contrary to popular beliefs, insomnia is often a chronic problem and does not necessarily remit by itself, the results of a long-term study published today indicate. This is especially true for people whose insomnia is severe from the beginning.
“Although people who experience insomnia for a few nights do not need to worry about it, when the sleep problem persists for some time (more than 1 month), they should not take it too lightly…and should seek treatment because it may not go away by itself,” Dr. Charles M. Morin, Director of the Sleep Research Center, Laval University, Quebec City, told Reuters Health.
Over 3 years, Morin and colleagues studied the natural history of insomnia in 388 people with varying degrees of insomnia at the start of the study.
Weight loss improves mild sleep apnea
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Losing weight through lifestyle changes can improve or even reverse mild cases of the nighttime breathing disorder, sleep apnea, a new study suggests.
The study, of 72 overweight adults with mild obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), found that those placed on a diet-and-lifestyle regimen not only lost weight but showed significant improvements in their sleep apnea.
OSA occurs when the soft tissues at the back of the throat temporarily collapse during sleep, causing repeated breathing interruptions. Major symptoms include loud snoring and daytime sleepiness.
Treating Sleep Apnea Can Be a Lifesaver
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Obstructive sleep apnea isn’t merely a snoring problem. This serious medical condition strains the cardiovascular system and increases the risk of high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, irregular heart rhythms, stroke and sudden cardiac death.
The February issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter examines this condition, including risk factors and common symptoms and treatments.
Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the muscles at the back of the throat relax during sleep and obstruct airflow. The airway narrows or even closes at the end of the exhalation. Breathing may stop momentarily.
Daytime impairments in older men with obstructive sleep apnea are related to total sleep time
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A study in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal SLEEP shows that daytime functional impairments in older men with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are largely explained by total sleep time rather than OSA severity.
A modest link between OSA severity and daytime sleepiness, measured by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, was no longer statistically significant after controlling for total sleep time. Neither sleep disturbances, measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, nor sleep-related quality of life, measure by the Functional Outcome of Sleep Questionnaire, were associated with OSA severity; all three measures were modestly associated with total sleep time.
According to lead author Dr. Eric J. Kezirian, director of the division of sleep surgery in the department of otolaryngology at the University of California in San Francisco, the study shows that the functional consequences of OSA in older men may differ from those in younger populations and may need to be measured with instruments designed specifically for the demographic.
Sleep disordered breathing and obesity: Independent effects, causes
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In a study that addressed the issue of insulin sensitivity with respect to sleep disordered breathing (SDB), Naresh Punjabi, M.D., Ph.D. sought to examine the relationship between SDB and insulin resistance using the best tools at his disposal to do so.
The results definitively link SDB to pre-diabetic changes in insulin production and glucose metabolism. It was published in the first issue for February of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.
“In the past researchers have used body mass index, or BMI, as a proxy measure for body fat, but we know this to be a variable and crude tool to assess the true percentage of body fat,” said Dr. Punjabi. “In addition, previous studies have used surrogate measurements to assess the body’s response to insulin without investigating the interaction that occurs between reduced insulin sensitivity and increased insulin production in the body.”
Getting Less Sleep Associated With Lower Resistance to Colds
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Individuals who get less than seven hours of sleep per night appear about three times as likely to develop respiratory illness following exposure to a cold virus as those who sleep eight hours or more, according to a report in the January 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Studies have demonstrated that sleep deprivation impairs some immune function, according to background information in the article. Research indicates that those who sleep approximately seven to eight hours per night have the lowest rates of heart disease illness and death. However, there has previously been little direct evidence that poor sleep increases susceptibility to the common cold.
Sheldon Cohen, Ph.D., of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and colleagues studied 153 healthy men and women (average age 37) between 2000 and 2004. Participants were interviewed daily over a two-week period, reporting how many hours they slept per night, what percentage of their time in bed was spent asleep (sleep efficiency) and whether they felt rested. They were then quarantined and administered nasal drops containing the common-cold–causing rhinovirus. For five days afterward, the study participants reported any signs and symptoms of illness and had mucus samples collected from their nasal passages for virus cultures; about 28 days later, they submitted a blood sample that was tested for antibody responses to the virus.
Study Helps Explain Connection Between Sleep Apnea, Stroke and Death
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Obstructive sleep apnea decreases blood flow to the brain, elevates blood pressure within the brain and eventually harms the brain’s ability to modulate these changes and prevent damage to itself, according to a new study published by The American Physiological Society. The findings may help explain why people with sleep apnea are more likely to suffer strokes and to die in their sleep.
Sleep apnea is the most commonly diagnosed condition amongst sleep-related breathing disorders and can lead to debilitating and sometimes fatal consequences for the 18 million Americans who have been diagnosed with the disorder. This study identifies a mechanism behind stroke in these patients.
The study, “Impaired cerebral autoregulation in obstructive sleep apnea” was carried out by Fred Urbano, Francoise Roux, Joseph Schindler and Vahid Mohsenin, all of the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. It appears in the current issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.
Rare sleep disorder may be a harbinger of dementia
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More than half of people with a rare sleep disorder develop a neurodegenerative disease, such as Parkinson’s disease, within 12 years of being diagnosed, results of a Canadian study published Wednesday indicate.
So-called “REM sleep behaviour disorder” affects a small percentage of the population, Dr. Ronald B. Postuma, at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and colleagues explain in the journal Neurology. It is characterized by a loss of the normal muscle relaxation while dreaming and is seen most often in men aged 50 and older. REM sleep behaviour disorder should not be confused with insomnia, night terrors, or confusional arousals.
Small studies have identified REM sleep behavior disorder as a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease and dementia. To investigate further, Postuma’s team conducted a follow-up study of 93 patients diagnosed with unexplained REM sleep behavior disorder between 1989 and 2006. The average time from diagnosis to last evaluation was 5.2 years.
Longer Sleep Linked With Lower Incidence of Calcification in Coronary Arteries
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Participants in a study who slept on average an hour longer per night than other participants had an associated lower incidence of coronary artery calcification, which is thought to be a predictor of future heart disease, according to a study in the December 24/31 issue of JAMA.
Risk factors for coronary artery calcification (the accumulation of calcified plaques visible by computed tomography [a method of imaging body organs]) include established heart disease risk factors such as male sex, older age, glucose intolerance, tobacco use, dyslipidemia (disorders of lipoprotein metabolism, which includes high cholesterol levels), high blood pressure, obesity, raised inflammatory markers and attaining a low educational level. Recent data suggest that sleep quantity and quality are connected to several of these risk factors. “However, some of these correlations have only been documented in studies in which sleep is measured by self-report, which may be biased or insufficiently accurate,” the authors write.
Christopher Ryan King, B.S., of the University of Chicago, and colleagues tested whether objectively measured sleep duration predicted the development of calcification over 5 years of follow-up. The study included 495 participants from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults [CARDIA] study, who were black and white men and women age 35-47 years. At the start of the study in 2000-2001, the participants had no evidence of detectable coronary calcification on computed tomography scans.
Poor sleep may impact elders’ physical abilities
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Poor quality sleep may lead to poorer physical function among otherwise healthy older men, study findings suggest.
“Men with poorer sleep quality, such as frequent awakening episodes, had weaker hand grip, slower walking speed, poorer walking balance, and were less likely to rise from a chair without using their hands,” Dr. Thuy-Tien L. Dam told Reuters Health.
However, “we don’t know what came first or what caused what,” noted Dam, who is currently associated with Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, in New York.
Using a Fan During Sleep May Reduce Infants’ SIDS Risk
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Infants who slept in a bedroom with a fan ventilating the air had a 72 percent lower risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome compared to infants who slept in a bedroom without a fan, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. The study appears in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
This is the first study to examine an association between better air ventilation in infants’ bedrooms and reduced SIDS risk.
The finding is consistent with previous research that showed factors influencing a baby’s sleep environment may change SIDS risk. Among those factors are sleeping on the stomach and soft bedding, both of which may limit air ventilation around an infant’s breathing pathway and thus increase the chance of re-breathing exhaled carbon dioxide, said the researchers.
Internet, alcohol and sleep tied to girls’ weight
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Girls and young women who devote much time to the Internet, get too little sleep or regularly drink alcohol are more likely than their peers to put on excess weight, a new study suggests.
The researchers, who followed more than 5,000 girls between 14 and 21 years old for 1 year, found that the more spare time girls spent on the Internet, the more their body mass index (BMI) increased.
Similar patterns were seen when the researchers looked at alcohol consumption and sleep. In the latter case, lack of sleep was linked to greater gains in BMI—a measure of weight in relation to height.
Kids’ neck size may point to risk of sleep apnea
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Children with bigger neck sizes for their age seem to be more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) syndrome, researchers report.
OSA occurs when soft tissues in the throat collapse and block the airway during sleep, so that breathing is briefly but repeatedly interrupted. Chronic snoring is often a sign of the problem. Because it disturbs sleep, it can lead to tiredness during the day as well as other problems.
The new report comes from SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. OSA has “many adverse neurocognitive consequences if left untreated in the child,” the study team notes in their meeting materials.
Memory loss linked to common sleep disorder
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For the first time, UCLA researchers have discovered that people with sleep apnea show tissue loss in brain regions that help store memory. Reported in the June 27 edition of the journal Neuroscience Letters, the findings emphasize the importance of early detection of the disorder, which afflicts an estimated 20 million Americans.
Sleep apnea occurs when a blocked airway repeatedly halts the sleeper’s breathing, resulting in loud bursts of snoring and chronic daytime fatigue. Memory loss and difficulty focusing are also common complaints. Prior studies have linked the disorder to a higher risk of stroke, heart disease and diabetes.
“Our findings demonstrate that impaired breathing during sleep can lead to a serious brain injury that disrupts memory and thinking,” said principal investigator Ronald Harper, a distinguished professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Link between migranes and sleep disorders in children
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Children with a migraine headache are more likely to have sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and lack of sleep, than children without a migraine, according to a research abstract on the effects of headaches on children’s sleep patterns that will be presented on Tuesday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
For this study, 90 children with headache and sleep problems underwent a polysomnogram, a sleep test that monitors the brain, eye movements, muscle activity, heart rhythm, and breathing. Of the participants, 60 had a migraine, 11 had a chronic daily headache, six had a tension headache and 13 had a non-specific headache.
The study found the children with a migraine were twice as likely as the other children in the study to have OSA. A sleep-related breathing disorder (SRBD) was found in 56 percent of the children with a migraine versus 30 percent of the children with a non-migraine headache. A severe migraine was also associated with shorter total sleep time, longer total time to fall asleep, and shorter REM sleep.
