Category: Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia

A lower metabolism, as well as slight changes in eating behavior, could explain the positive energy balance leading to being overweight with narcolepsy. The study, authored by Dorotheé Chabas, MD, PhD, of the Fédération des Pathologies du Sommeil, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtriére, Paris, France, focused on 13 patients with narcolepsy and nine healthy controls matched for age, gender and ethnicity.

Children have more difficulty initiating sleep than maintaining sleep. Further, parents tend to underestimate their children’s sleep problems. This highlights the importance of having treatment options available to help a child overcome a sleep disorder. The study, authored by Leonie Fricke-Oerkermann, PhD, of the University of Cologne in Germany, centered on 832 children and their parents, who were surveyed using questionnaires three times on an annual basis.

The first study to assess the stability of three aspects of sleep behavior in relation to long-term mortality finds an increased risk of mortality in short sleep, long sleep and frequent use of medications. The study, authored by Christer Hublin, MD, PhD, of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki, Finland, focused on the responses of 21,268 twins to questionnaires administered in 1975 and 1981.

Researchers from the University of Warwick, and University College London, have found that lack of sleep can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. However they have also found that a point comes when too much sleep can also more than double the risk of death.

A new UK study suggests that both too much and too little sleep can more than double the risk of death from heart disease.To be published in the journal SLEEP, the study is the work of scientists from the University of Warwick and University College London and was presented yesterday, Monday 24th September to a meeting of the British Sleep Society.

About one million baby cribs, made in China, have been recalled by Simplicity Inc., a supplier to large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, due to failures resulting in infant deaths. The US Consumer Safety Commission (CPSC) says it is a voluntary recall. The CPSC says a dangerous gap which can lead to entrapment (baby getting stuck) is created when the drop-side can detach from the crib, raising the risk of suffocation for the infant.

The American Sleep Association is preparing for Sleep Apnea Awareness Week, a national event focused on increasing public awareness about this potentially deadly sleep disorder. The event will occur during the first seven days of October. Local and national members and affiliates of the American Sleep Association (ASA) will be participating in the event. ASA affiliated sleep disorder laboratories will be prepared to answer questions from the public about sleep apnea.

Two studies presented at the annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) in Stockholm have revealed that obesity surgery (known to specialists as bariatric surgery) may have important advantages beyond its primary objective of major weight loss. It can significantly reduce, or even eliminate, interruptions to breathing (apnoea) during sleep. Sleep apnoea can cause snoring and is a recognised risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Opioid-based pain medications may cause sleep apnea, according to an article in the September issue of Pain Medicine, the journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.”We found that sleep-disordered breathing was common when chronic pain patients took prescribed opioids,” explains lead author Lynn R. Webster, MD, from Lifetree Clinical Research and Pain Clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Scientists have long known that the human body runs like clockwork, guided by a circadian system that responds to daily patterns of light and darkness. Now a team of researchers is developing a personal device to measure daily light intake and activity, which could allow them to predict optimal timing for light therapy to synchronize the circadian clock to the 24-hour solar day and relieve psychosocial stress.