News

Telephone delivered therapy could help treat insomnia

Mar 08 2013...

A new study found that telephone delivered cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of chronic insomnia (CBTI) helped improve sleep quality.

“These results are important, because they provide preliminary support for the efficacy and sustainability of telephone-delivered CBTI,” said Dr. J. Todd Arnedt, associate professor of psychiatry and neurology and Director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine program at the University of Michigan Hospital and Health Systems in Ann Arbor, Mich. and principal investigator and lead author of the study. “If replicated in larger controlled studies, the telephone could be integrated as an effective modality for disseminating CBTI on a broader scale.” READ MORE>>

Insomnia linked to increased risk of heart failure

Mar 06 2013...

A new study found that people who suffer from insomnia appear to have an increased risk of developing heart failure.

"We related heart failure risk to three major insomnia symptoms including trouble falling asleep, problems staying asleep, and not waking up feeling refreshed in the morning,” said Dr. Lars Laugsand, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Public Health, Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. “In our study, we found that persons suffering from insomnia have increased risk of having heart failure. Those reporting suffering from all three insomnia symptoms simultaneously were at considerably higher risk than those who had no symptoms or only one or two symptoms." READ MORE>>

Insomnia, poor sleep common in epileptics

Feb 22 2013...

A new study suggests that insomnia and poor sleep are common in patients with epilepsy and may adversely impact quality of life. Interventions to improve sleep hygiene can be suggested to patients as part of more comprehensive epilepsy education programs.

The study involved 152 patients with epilepsy completing multiple questionnaires. Patients with other known sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), were excluded from the study. More than half of the participants (55%) suffered from insomnia and more than 70% were “poor sleepers.” Insomnia and poor sleep quality were significantly related to the number of antiepileptic medications and a large number of depressive symptoms. READ MORE>>

Study may explain how brain remains alert during waking hours

Feb 19 2013...

A new study led by an international team of biologists at UCLA and the University of Toronto, has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.

“Seals do something biologically amazing – they sleep with half their brain at a time,” said Professor John Peever of the University of Toronto. “The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. Seals sleep this way while they're in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens." READ MORE>>

Sleeping pills could have harmful side effects for COPD patients

Feb 13 2013...

Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto have found that a popular class of drugs commonly used to treat sleep and mood symptoms continues to be frequently prescribed despite being known to have potentially life-threatening side effects. Previous studies have linked benzodiazepines – a medication class that may be used in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to treat symptoms of insomnia, depression, anxiety and shortness of breath – with adverse outcomes, but until now there has been little information on how frequently it's prescribed or who is using it.

“I see a large number of COPD patients taking this medication class to help relieve disease-related symptoms like insomnia, depression and anxiety," said Dr. Vozoris, lead author and respirologist at St. Michael's. "But considering the potential respiratory side-effects, and the well-documented neurocognitive side effects like memory loss, decreased alertness, falls and increased risk of motor vehicle accidents, the high frequency of benzodiazepine use in COPD is very concerning." READ MORE>>

Do sleep problems lurk beneath dismal U.S. health report?

Jan 09 2013...

A new report issued Wednesday paints a dismal picture of public health in the U.S. Can part of the blame be placed on our nation’s sleep problems?

The report was requested by the National Institutes of Health. It was prepared by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. U.S. data were compared with statistics from 16 “peer” countries. These are other high-income democracies such as Canada, Australia, France and Japan. READ MORE>>

Sleep deprivation disrupts regulation of body heat

Dec 18 2012...

In people that are well-rested, spontaneous fluctuations in skin blood flow occur in a coordinated way all over the body, resulting in simultaneous small changes in the same direction in the temperature of hands and feet. Sleep deprivation disrupts this coordination, according to a new study.

“This information could help to improve the detection of sleepiness through measurements of the temperature of hands and feet,” said the study’s primary investigator, Dr. Eus J.W. Van Someren, head of the Department of Sleep and Cognition at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN), an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and professor in the Department of Integrative Neurophysiology, at the VU University in Amsterdam. “The results provide a new window on the harmful effects of sleep deprivation on cardiovascular regulation.” READ MORE>>

Treat kid’s sleep problems with interdisciplinary approach

Dec 07 2012...

Pediatricians and respiratory specialists should work together whenever a sleep problem is suspected in a child, a new study reports. Children with sleep-related breathing problems such as snoring or apnea frequently have behavioral sleep problems such as waking repeatedly. Children with sleep disorders often aren’t evaluated and treated for behavioral sleep problems - and vice versa. READ MORE>>

Insomniacs don’t realize why they awaken

Dec 03 2012...

Chronic insomniacs don’t realize why they awaken at night, but awakenings may be caused by sleep breathing problems, reported researchers from the Sleep and Human Health Institute (SHHI) in Albuquerque, NM, found that.

“We have known for nearly two decades that breathing plays an unexpected role in insomnia in general and sleep interruptions in particular, but we were surprised that 90% of awakenings were preceded by breathing events.” said Dr. Barry Krakow, principal investigator on the project. READ MORE>>

Music for the brain resets insomnia

Nov 26 2012...

Researchers are studying a new therapy to help people with insomnia find restful sleep. The Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center study looked at whether a non-invasive approach that uses musical tones to balance brain activity can ‘reset’ the brain and effectively reduce insomnia. READ MORE>>