Kicking and lashing out while asleep could mean you’re more likely to develop dementia or Parkinson’s disease,” The report said a study has found a link between a sleep disorder and a higher risk of certain types of dementia up to 50 years later.
The study looked at people diagnosed with one of several related neurological conditions and analysed their history of a severe form of REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD), a condition in which people can act out recurrent dreams and move excessively while asleep.
The study was not designed to look at the strength of the link between RBD (REM sleep behavior disorder) and dementias, as patients in the study were selected because they were known to have had both of these conditions. Therefore, it is not possible to say from this study whether restless sleep is a predictor of future dementia as is implied in the newspaper headline. More research into whether RBD could be an early sign of the brain changes that lead to dementia later on would be useful.
A connection between Parkinson’s and RBD (REM sleep behavior disorder) was first noticed a couple of decades ago by researchers at the Mayo Clinic, said Boeve, a professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Until now, the median interval noted between the two was about 10 years.
“Some people tell us that their wedding night — that was the first time couples slept together back in those days” — was the first indication of a problem, Boeve said. “Wives would report ‘I got punched. I didn’t know what I would be enduring for decades to come.’”
Boeve and his co-authors reviewed Mayo Clinic records to identify 27 patients who had RBD and went on to develop Parkinson’s, dementia with Lewy bodies or multiple system atrophy, all neurodegenerative diseases, 15 or more years later.
Thirteen of the patients were diagnosed with dementia, another 13 with Parkinson’s and one with multiple system atrophy.
Among the entire database of hundreds of patients (this included people with shorter intervals between the two diagnoses), only one with the sleep disorder had autopsy-confirmed Alzheimer’s, Boeve said.
The average time elapsing between RBD and one of the other diseases was 25 years, the researchers found.
Eighty-nine percent of the patients in the sample were men, although it’s not clear why, as neurological disorders affect both genders, noted the authors of an accompanying editorial.
Boeve cautions that “not everybody that acts out dreams at night has RBD.” They may have another sleep disorder producing similar symptoms, he said.
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September 15th, 2010 at 11:56 am
People who scream and thrash around in their sleep may be more likely to develop the condition, scientists claim.
Researchers found that people who suffer from “REM sleep disturbance”, which includes nightmares, kicking and screaming, were at a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s and other forms of demential within the next five years.
REM – or rapid eye movement – is the stage of sleep when most people begin to dream. But while normal sleepers are effectively paralysed during this stage because the brain shuts off their muscles, those with an REM sleep disorder often act out their dreams with violent movements.
Spanish scientists found that one in five people over 60 who suffered from the sleep disorder went on to develop Parkinson’s and other degenerative diseases, such as Lewy body dementia.
The study, published in the Lancet Neurology journal, suggests that sleep disorders could be one of the first signs of brain diseases.
September 21st, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Yeast could be a powerful ally in the discovery of new therapeutic drugs to treat Parkinson’s disease says a scientist presenting his work at the Society for General Microbiology’s autumn meeting in Nottingham.
Dr Tiago Fleming Outeiro from the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal describes how his group is slowly uncovering the molecular basis of Parkinson’s disease by studying the associated human protein in yeast cells.
Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder without any known cure that affects around 6 million people worldwide. The symptoms, which include rigidity, difficulty in initiating movements and resting tremors, are all related to the specific death of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. These neurons characteristically contain protein deposits, known as Lewy bodies. A small protein called alpha-synclein is the main component of these deposits.
October 3rd, 2010 at 11:40 pm
A new study has indicated that getting too little or too much sleep in early pregnancy is associated with elevated blood pressure in the third trimester.
The study suggests that improving prenatal sleep hygiene may provide important health benefits.
Results show that the mean systolic blood pressure in the third trimester was 114 mm Hg in women with a normal self-reported nightly sleep duration of nine hours in early pregnancy, 118.05 mm Hg in women who reported sleeping six hours or less per night, and 118.90 mm Hg in women with a nightly sleep duration of 10 hours or more in early pregnancy.
After adjustments for potential confounders such as age, race and pre-pregnancy body mass index, mean systolic blood pressure was 3.72 mm Hg higher in short sleepers and 4.21 mm Hg higher in long sleepers. Similar results also were found for diastolic blood pressure.
According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, systolic blood pressure – the top number in a blood pressure reading – is the force of blood in the arteries as the heart beats. A systolic blood pressure reading is considered to be “high” if it is 140 or more millimeters of mercury.
The study involved 1,272 healthy, pregnant women who completed a structured interview at 14 weeks gestation, on average. Sleep duration in early pregnancy was evaluated by the question, “Since becoming pregnant, how many hours per night do you sleep?”
Only about 20.5 percent of women reported a sleep duration of nine hours per night, which was used as the “normal” reference category because prior research indicates that pregnant women tend to have longer sleep duration patterns.
About 55.2 percent of women reported sleeping seven to eight hours per night, 13.7 percent slept six hours or less and about 10.6 percent slept 10 hours or more.
According to the authors, a number of mechanisms by which habitual short sleep duration may lead to increased blood pressure have been proposed. Because blood pressure is known to dip by an average of 10 to 20 percent during sleep, short sleep durations may raise the average 24-hour blood pressure and heart rate.
This may lead to structural changes that gradually raise the pressure equilibrium of the entire cardiovascular system. Sleep restriction also may produce abnormalities in the levels of hormones such as endothelin and vasopressin, which play an important role in the cardiovascular system.
The authors suspect that the association between long sleep duration and elevated blood pressures may be related to unmeasured confounders such as obstructive sleep apnea, depression or insulin resistance.
Principal investigator and lead author Dr. Michelle A. Williams, professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington and co-director of the Center for Perinatal Studies at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Wash, advises pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to develop healthy habits that promote sufficient sleep.
The study has been published in the journal Sleep.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
“Women who get between five and six-and-a-half hours sleep a night could live longer,” reports the Daily Express. The news is based on the results of a long-running study of 459 women aged 50 to 81.
This research initially assessed the women’s sleep patterns over one week, using wrist-mounted activity monitor worn at night. Researchers then followed the women for up to 14 years to see how their sleep patterns might have influenced their chances of survival. The scientists found that those women who had slept longer or shorter hours were more likely to have died compared to women who had slept a moderate length. However, as with all studies of this type, it is difficult to say for certain whether sleep directly caused differences in survival rates. Also, the study’s findings may not apply to men or to people under 50 years old.
Although this and other studies seem to suggest that sleeping too much or too little is associated with an increased risk of death, it is not possible to say why this might be, nor whether changing your sleep patterns could influence your longevity.