Sleep On It

T.O.I., Patna 27.12.2008

Sleep On It

Snooze your way to better health.

Insightful as usual, Shakespeare was on the button when he called sleep "Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast". Scientists now maintain that seven to nine hours of sleep for adult humans benefits alertness, memory and overall health, apart from reducing the risk of accidents. On the other hand, short sleep has been shown to be a risk factor for weight gain, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes. The latest study, however, indicates that not getting an optimal amount of sleep can, in the course of just a few years, also lead to dangerous heart problems caused by hardening of the arteries.
The research, published in the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’, tracked the sleep patterns of some 500 people aged between 35 and 47 over a period of five years and found that sleep duration appeared to play a significant role in the build up of calcium deposits inside coronary arteries. Specifically, 27 per cent of those who had slept and average of less than five hours a night developed arterial calcification, while among those who slept more than seven hours a night the number had dropped to barely 6 per cent. Meaning, just one extra hour of sleep a day can lower the risk of developing such deposits. Although researchers say that it’s not quite clear exactly how sleep affects heart disease risk, they add that getting enough sleep can help to keep our heart and circulation healthy.
The advice is particularly germane in industrialized societies and developing economies where fewer hours’ sleep and greater levels of sleep disturbance have become widespread. This change, which is largely the result of sleep curtailment in order to create more time for leisure and shift work, has meant that reports of fatigue, tiredness and excessive daytime sleepiness are more common than a few decades ago. And since sleep represents the daily process of physiological restitution and recovery, the lack of it could have far-reaching consequences.
For a country like India where cardiovascular diseases are already the leading cause of death, the message couldn’t be clearer: getting enough sleep is absolutely essential. And, of course, now when the party season is upon us there will be constant temptations for certain people to sleep even less than they normally do. They have been warned.

Brain starvation can trigger Alzheimer’s

T.O.I. Patna 27.12.08

Brain starvation can trigger Alzheimer’s

Paris: A gradual loss of blood flow to the brain over years or decades could be a major trigger for Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study. Up till now, the cause for this disease has remained a mystery, even if the mechanism causing the damage is well understood.
The new research shows that an insufficient supply of sugar glucose, transported by blood, sets off a bio-chemical chain reaction resulting in the accumulation of the neuron-attacking proteins that cause Alzheimer’s.
"This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach for prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s," said Robert Vassar, a professor at North western University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and lead author of this study. "Exercising, reducing cholesterol intake and man aging hypertension are the measures that could provide added protection", he said. "For persons who already shows symptoms of constricted arteries, taking vasodilators (drugs that boost blood flow) could help deliver nourishing oxygen and glucose to the brain," he added.
Drawing from experiments with humans and mice, Vassar and colleagues showed that reduced blood flow alters a protein called elF2alpha.
In its changed form, elF2alpha increases the output of the enzyme that spurs production of the fiber-like knots of amyloidal beta protein that form outside neurons and disrupt their ability to send messages.
The finding published in the journal Neuron could lead to drugs designed to block the elF2alpha production that begins the formation of the protein clumps, also known as amyloid plaques, Professor Vassar added.
Alzheimer’s disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought, memory and language.