http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Animal species that sleep for longer do not suffer as much from parasite infestation and have a greater concentration of immune cells in their blood according to a study published in the open-access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news150695460.html Biology Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:51:00 EST news150695460 There are no sheep keeping Mari A. company at bedtime. Rather, she counts thoughts of layoffs, mortgage payments and plummeting stocks. Her insomnia started back in November, when the economy hit a critical low. Restless, she manages to fall asleep but wakes up in the middle of the night and is unable to drift back into a slumber. http://www.physorg.com/news150654506.html Medicine & Health Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:28:26 EST news150654506 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. http://www.physorg.com/news150461826.html Medicine & Health Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:57:06 EST news150461826 A study in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep demonstrates that the frequent arousals from sleep that occur in heart failure patients with central sleep apnea (CSA) may reflect the presence of another underlying arousal disorder rather than being a defensive mechanism to terminate apneas. http://www.physorg.com/news150024559.html Medicine & Health Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:29:19 EST news150024559 A study in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep indicates that the indirect costs of untreated insomnia are significantly greater than the direct costs associated with its treatment. The study estimates that the total annual cost of insomnia in the province of Quebec is 6.5 billion Canadian dollars, representing about one percent of the province's $228.5 billion in gross domestic product for 2002. http://www.physorg.com/news150024040.html Medicine & Health Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:20:40 EST news150024040 According to the latest study by Dr. Ronald Postuma from the Research Institute of the MUHC and Dr. Jacques Montplaisir from the Université de Montréal and the Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal, 52.4 per cent of patients with REM sleep behaviour disorder develop a neurodegenerative disease within 12 years following their initial diagnosis. These results will be published on December 24, 2008 in the journal Neurology, the official publication of the American Academy of Neurology. http://www.physorg.com/news149362978.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:42:58 EST news149362978 One extra hour of sleep per night appears to decrease the risk of coronary artery calcification, an early step down the path to cardiovascular disease, a research team based at the University of Chicago Medical Center reports in the Dec. 24/31 issue of JAMA. The benefit of one hour of additional sleep was comparable to the gains from lowering systolic blood pressure by 17 mm Hg. http://www.physorg.com/news149271975.html Medicine & Health Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:26:15 EST news149271975 A study in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine suggests that screening type 2 diabetes patients for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and treating those who have OSA with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy could improve the management of their hyperglycemia and might favorably influence their long-term prognosis. http://www.physorg.com/news148563465.html Medicine & Health Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:37:45 EST news148563465 A study in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that after a one-hour delay of school start times, teens increased their average nightly hours of sleep and decreased their "catch-up sleep" on the weekends, and they were involved in fewer auto accidents. http://www.physorg.com/news148543709.html Medicine & Health Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:08:29 EST news148543709 The reorganization of neural activity during sleep helps young songbirds to develop the vocal skills they display while awake, University of Chicago researchers have found. http://www.physorg.com/news148487295.html Biology Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:28:15 EST news148487295 Postpartum depression (PPD) can lead to poor sleep quality, recent research shows. A study published in the current issue of the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing shows that depression symptoms worsen in PPD patients when their quality of sleep declines. http://www.physorg.com/news148134055.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:20:55 EST news148134055 Scientists from Monash University, Melbourne have shown that infants born prematurely have lower blood pressure during sleep in the first six months of life, compared to healthy, full-term infants. http://www.physorg.com/news147955133.html Medicine & Health Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:38:53 EST news147955133 Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment seems to improve cognitive functioning in patients with Alzheimer's disease who also suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, according to the results of a randomized clinical trial conducted at the University of California, San Diego. The study - led by Sonia Ancoli-Israel, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and one of the nation's preeminent experts in the field of sleep disorders and sleep research in aging populations - was published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society. http://www.physorg.com/news147532741.html Medicine & Health Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:19:01 EST news147532741 A team of researchers from Monash University, The Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston), Harvard Medical School and Vanda Pharmaceuticals has found a new drug with the potential to alleviate jet lag and sleep disorders caused by shift work. http://www.physorg.com/news147447772.html Medicine & Health Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:42:52 EST news147447772 A study in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Sleep is the first to show that high levels of prenatal smoking exposure strongly modify sleep patterns in preterm neonates, which places infants at a higher risk for developmental difficulties that could persist throughout early and middle childhood. http://www.physorg.com/news147355327.html Medicine & Health Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:02:07 EST news147355327 A study in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that the use of light exposure therapy, dark sunglasses and a strict sleep schedule can help night-shift workers create a "compromise circadian phase position," which may result in increased performance and alertness during night shifts while still allowing adequate nighttime sleep on days off. http://www.physorg.com/news147337573.html Medicine & Health Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:06:13 EST news147337573 In a novel study appearing this week in Neuron, Brandeis researchers identify for the first time a specific set of wake-promoting neurons in fruit flies that are analogous to cells in the much more complex sleep circuit in humans. The study demonstrates that in flies, as in mammals, the sleep circuit is intimately linked to the circadian clock and that the brain's strategies to govern sleep are evolutionarily ancient. http://www.physorg.com/news146922838.html Medicine & Health Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:53:58 EST news146922838 Between the ages of six months and six years old, close to 90 percent of children have at least one sleep-related problem. Among the most common issues are night terrors, teeth-grinding and bed-wetting. http://www.physorg.com/news146231075.html Medicine & Health Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:44:35 EST news146231075 Exercise is good for more than just your waistline. A recent study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research suggests that regular physical activity can lower a woman's overall risk of cancer - but only if she gets a good night's sleep. Otherwise, lack of sleep can undermine exercise's cancer prevention benefits. http://www.physorg.com/news146158293.html Medicine & Health Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:31:33 EST news146158293 (PhysOrg.com) -- Sleep helps the mind learn complicated tasks and helps people recover learning they otherwise thought they had forgotten over the course of a day, research at the University of Chicago shows. http://www.physorg.com/news146141560.html Medicine & Health Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:52:40 EST news146141560 Sleeping less than seven and a half hours per day may be associated with future risk of heart disease, according to a report in the November 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. In addition, a combination of little sleep and overnight elevated blood pressure appears to be associated with an increased risk of the disease. http://www.physorg.com/news145558000.html Medicine & Health Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:46:40 EST news145558000 If a good night's sleep helps the brain and body perform better, it's a good guess that sleep problems can cause more than just fatigue. Numerous studies have shown a connection between sleep disorders and medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, and metabolic disorders, including the risk of obesity and diabetes mellitus. http://www.physorg.com/news145547456.html Medicine & Health Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:50:56 EST news145547456 After studying the sleep characteristics of nearly 11,000 adults in an overnight sleep laboratory, Mayo Clinic researchers suggest that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) - and, in particular, the low nighttime oxygen saturation of the blood it causes - may be a risk factor for sudden cardiac death (SCD). http://www.physorg.com/news145529627.html Medicine & Health Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:53:47 EST news145529627 Adjusting the clocks to summer time on the last Sunday in March increases the risk of myocardial infarction in the following week. In return, putting the clocks back in the autumn reduces the risk, albeit to a lesser extent. This according to a new Swedish study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news144581496.html Medicine & Health Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:31:36 EST news144581496 The breathing and heart rates and cortisol levels of women with metastatic breast cancer can be used to predict if they'll suffer from chronic insomnia and sleep disruptions, a common complaint from patients who want to maintain their quality of life, according to a study by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center. http://www.physorg.com/news143725446.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:44:06 EST news143725446 A study in the October 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a significant predictor of insomnia in women with breast cancer and confirmed that longer nocturnal wake episodes were associated with a flatter diurnal cortisol slope. http://www.physorg.com/news143267327.html Medicine & Health Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:28:47 EST news143267327 About two-thirds of children with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) - snoring or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) - have some degree of cognitive deficit, but the severity of the cognitive deficit has been notoriously difficult to correlate to the severity of the SDB, suggesting that other important issues may be at play, or that the right factors were simply not being measured. http://www.physorg.com/news142564871.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:21:11 EST news142564871 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. http://www.physorg.com/news142527893.html Medicine & Health Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:04:53 EST news142527893 A study in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that the successful manipulation of sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) amplitude by instrumental SMR conditioning (ISC) improved sleep quality as well as declarative learning. ISC might thus be considered a promising non-pharmacological treatment for primary insomnia. http://www.physorg.com/news142052581.html Medicine & Health Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:03:01 EST news142052581 Nearly 60 percent of the nation's elderly have trouble sleeping, whether it's a lot of tossing and turning or outright bouts of insomnia. While for most people sleeplessness can be annoying at best or unhealthy at worst, for elderly individuals who have suffered from depression in the past, poor sleep may be the first sign that a new bout of depression is coming on. http://www.physorg.com/news141994900.html Medicine & Health Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:01:40 EST news141994900