http://sleep.health.am/ http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/sleep-apnea-patients-should-be-screened-for-depression/ Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients with symptoms of excessive sleepiness have the greatest risk of depression, says a new study, and should be screened for this condition. Dr. Stacey Ishman and a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University evaluated 56 consecutive patients with OSA aged 27-74 who visited a clinic for treatment and compared them with 51 patients who did not have OSA. Overall, significantly more OSA patients met the criteria for depression (29%) than those who did not have OSA (8%). The severity of their sleep apnea was a good predictor of the severity of their depression symptoms, however, their depression symptoms did not predict the severity of the sleep apnea. 2010-03-09T11:50:00-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/poll-reveals-sleep-differences-among-ethnic-groups/ The 2010 Sleep in America poll released today by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) reveals significant differences in the sleep habits and attitudes of Asians, Blacks/African-Americans, Hispanics and Whites. It is the first poll to examine sleep among these four ethnic groups. NSF’s Sleep in America poll found that more than three-fourths of respondents from each ethnic group agree that poor sleep is associated with health problems (76-83%). These new findings echo lessons learned by former President Bill Clinton who recently admitted that he has adopted a new lifestyle regimen to sleep seven or more hours on the advice of his doctors. The poll also shows that all groups report disturbingly similar experiences missing work or family functions because they were too sleepy (19-24%). Among married people or couples living together, all ethnic groups report being too tired for sex frequently (21- 26% of the time).  2010-03-09T09:47:00-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/extremes-of-sleep-related-to-increased-fat-around-organs/ Not getting enough sleep does more damage than just leaving you with puffy eyes. It can cause fat to accumulate around your organs – more dangerous, researchers say, than those pesky love handles and jiggly thighs. A new study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine reveals how extremes of sleep – both too much and too little – can be hazardous to your health – especially for young minority women, a group most affected by obesity and chronic metabolic disease. The findings also indicate that there’s more to “fat” than what we choose to eat – social factors such as the need to work three jobs in a bad economy – could be causing dangerous fat deposition around vital organs. “We put a lot of stock in diet,” said Kristen G. Hairston, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism and lead author on the study. “But this study brings up some interesting questions about the way we live. We may need to start looking at other behaviors – besides daily food choices – that could be contributing to the obesity epidemic in younger age groups.” 2010-03-02T23:45:00-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/putting-sleep-myths-to-rest/ Sleep is essential to our health, yet most of us do not place that much importance on it. In fact, thanks to several common sleep misconceptions, many think they can get away with just a few hours per night — a dangerous assumption. Here are five of the most common sleep myths and the truth behind them, courtesy of the National Sleep Foundation: Myth #1 You can train yourself to get by with less sleep. Truth: While many people habitually sleep less than the eight hours of recommended sleep time, sleep is a biologic need, like food or water, which the body cannot do without for long Going without sleep for long will result in sleep intruding into the daytime, whether or not it is wanted or convenient. Thomas Edison is a famous case of someone who thought sleep was a waste of his time and he could train himself to do without it, yet in many photographs he is seen to be sleeping inadvertently at work or meetings.  2010-02-26T10:35:00-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/sleep-deprivation/ The latest research findings on the effects of sleep deprivation are more worrisome that what we had previously suspected. We are already aware that people who regularly sleep less than six hours per night can experience slow reaction times, loss of concentration, an increased incidence of obesity and other medical problems, and other sleep disorders. A new study by Harvard Medical School researchers indicates that we are only fooling ourselves if we think that a lengthy “sleep-in” on the weekend of 10 hours or more will make up for late nights of shift work, television, texting, or video games. In the study “Uncovering Residual Effects of Chronic Sleep Loss on Human Performance,” published in the January 14, 2010 issue of Science Translational Journal, Harvard neurologist Daniel Cohen, M.D. showed that too little sleep over a long-term period of weeks causes a faster decline in performance than had been previously thought – up to 10 times worse. The research, conducted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, involved participants who lived at the hospital. They were allowed five days to catch up on sleep and then spent 21 days on a sleep cycle of about 33 hours awake and 10 hours asleep.  2010-02-26T10:31:01-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/the-mathematics-behind-a-good-nights-sleep/ Why can’t I fall asleep? Will this new medication keep me up all night? Can I sleep off this cold? Despite decades of research, answers to these basic questions about one of our most essential bodily functions remain exceptionally difficult to answer. In fact, researchers still don’t fully understand why we even sleep at all. In an effort to better understand the sleep-wake cycle and how it can go awry, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are taking a different approach than the traditional brain scans and sleep studies. They are using mathematics. Professor of Mathematics Mark Holmes and his graduate student Lisa Rogers are using math to develop a new computer model that can be easily manipulated by other scientists and doctors to predict how different environmental, medical, or physical changes to a person’s body will affect their sleep. Their model will also provide clues to the most basic dynamics of the sleep-wake cycle. “We wanted to create a very interdisciplinary tool to understand the sleep-wake cycle,” Holmes said. “We based the model on the best and most recent biological findings developed by neurobiologists on the various phases of the cycle and built our mathematical equations from that foundation. This has created a model that is both mathematically and biologically accurate and useful to a variety of scientists. 2010-02-25T23:24:00-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/the-role-of-sleep-in-brain-development/ Marcos Frank, PhD, associate professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, will present information on early brain development and the importance of sleep during early life when the brain is rapidly maturing and highly changeable. Building on his research that the brain during sleep is fundamentally different from the brain during wakefulness, Dr. Frank has found that cellular changes in the sleeping brain that may promote the formation of memories. “This is the first real direct insight into how the brain, on a cellular level, changes the strength of its connections during sleep,” Frank says. When an animal goes to sleep it’s like a switch is thrown, everything is turned on that’s necessary for making synaptic changes that form the basis of memory formation. The team used an animal model of cortical plasticity – the making and breaking of neural connections in response to life experiences.  2010-02-22T17:56:00-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/sleep-and-lives-of-patients-with-pain/ Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia significantly improved sleep for patients with chronic neck or back pain and also reduced the extent to which pain interfered with their daily functioning, according to a study by University of Rochester Medical Center researchers. The study, published online by the journal Sleep Medicine, demonstrates that a behavioral intervention can help patients who already are taking medications for pain and might be reluctant or unable to take additional drugs to treat sleep disturbance. “This therapy made a major difference to these patients,” said Carla R. Jungquist, F.N.P., Ph.D., of the Medical Center’s Sleep and Neurophysiology Research Laboratory, who is the lead author of the Sleep Medicine article. “We saw very good treatment effects.” 2010-02-11T21:46:01-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/patients-with-severe-obstructive-sleep-apnea/ A study in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal SLEEP found gray matter concentration deficits in multiple brain areas of people with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The study suggests that the memory impairment, cardiovascular disturbances, executive dysfunctions, and dysregulation of autonomic and respiratory control frequently observed in OSA patients may be related to morphological changes in brain structure. Results indicate that in newly diagnosed men with severe OSA, gray matter concentrations were significantly decreased in multiple brain areas, including limbic structures, prefrontal cortices and the cerebellum. Optimized voxel-based morphometry, an automated processing technique for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), was used to characterize structural differences in gray matter by examining the entire brain, rather than a particular region. “Gray matter” refers to the cerebral cortex, where most information processing in the brain takes place. It is a layer of tissue that coats the surface of the cerebrum and the cerebellum and is gray in appearance, lacking the myelin insulation that makes most other parts of the brain appear to be white. 2010-02-01T19:56:01-08:00 http://sleep.health.am/sleep/more/expanding-waist-worsens-kids-sleep-apnea/ For children who have trouble breathing during sleep, gaining weight around the middle may make things worse, new research shows. In obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, a person stops breathing multiple times during the night. It is often accompanied by heavy snoring. About 2 percent of children have OSA, which is frequently treated by removing the tonsils and adenoids. Gaining weight is known to worsen OSA in adults, but it’s not clear what factors increase the likelihood that a child with mild OSA will experience worsening of their symptoms, Dr. A. M. Li of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and colleagues point out in a report in the medical journal Thorax. 2010-02-01T15:45:01-08:00