Research News: More Serious Health Risks With Insomnia

People once in their lives may have experienced how it is to be deprived of sleep. One or two sleepless nights…it may feel like a worn out battery that badly needs recharging. How much more if you are a certified insomniac who still hasn’t found one hell of a solution to your sleep problem?

This problem is usually presents as fatigue, lack of clear judgment and decision making, inability to focus, slowed response, mood changes, irritability and reduced energy levels for people with chronic insomnia. Recent researches show that it could certainly pose more serious effects that may affect people’s inflammatory processes and cardiovascular health.

The results of UCLA’s study said that the lack of sleep even for just a night may cause disruptions in normal activities of the cellular pathways which may further lead to tissue damaging inflammatory reactions. Benefits of good sleep on the other hand, includes decreased risk of heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

A substance called nuclear factor (NF)-ºB, which main task is to signal inflammatory processes – is the one measured in the study. It was observed that subjects who were deprived of sleep for just one night, had significantly increased activation of the (NF)-ºB signaling as compared to the baseline measurements. It was noted that this increase was only observed among females.

The results of this study can be very helpful in strengthening the link between sleep disturbance and the wide array of medical conditions such cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, certain cancers, and obesity. The closer that we look at sleep, the more that we learn about the benefits of sleeping,” Dr. John H. Krystal said.

The research team of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston specifically looked into the relationship of sleep imbalance and cardiovascular risks. Dr. Najib Ayas says, “sleep is probably one of the pillars to a healthy lifestyle. Too little sleep puts stress on the body.” This was based on the results which showed that women who have been sleeping less and those who are sleeping more than the usual sleeping hours had increased risk of developing heart disease.

Studies all point to one thing - length of sleep really does matter. For women who slept 5 hours of less, there is 45% risk of having heart problems. For those who slept for six hours, they had 18% increased risk while those who slept for seven hours only had 9% risk.

So does this mean that we need to increase the hours of sleep such that the longer hours the better? This cannot be absolutely true, because adding too much can also be bad for our health. This can be supported by the finding that women who slept nine hours have 38% increased risk for developing heart problems as compared to women who slept for just 8 hours.

The possible explanation behind this trend among women who lack sleep is the increase in cortisol, a hormone which is secreted during any stressful situation (physical, emotional, physiological, etc.) This hormone is strongly associated with the increase in blood pressure. Possible associations for those with longer hours of sleep with known cardiovascular risk are depression, sleep apnea, and chronic pulmonary disease.

This data is definitely relevant as the number of people who are getting less sleep is increasing, according to the Sleep in America poll by the National Sleep Foundation. There is specifically a decline among adults who are getting 8 hours of sleep. It was found out that women sleep for 7 hours, on the average, as compared to men with 6.7 hours of sleep per night. Women were found to be more likely to report symptoms of insomnia (63% as compared to men with 54%.) Furthermore, more women also report frequent daytime sleepiness (20% vs. 13% for men.) Accordingly, more than one quarter of women said that they need to get more sleep so that they can be totally alert the following day.

At the end of the day, still early detection and prompt treatment is the best way to go. Discuss with your doctors during consultations changes in your sleep hygiene: quantity and quality of sleep, daytime sleepiness, snoring, pauses in breathing, leg movements or other disruptions during the night – all of which can affect your current and future overall state of health.

By: Gerrard Mackenzie

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Gerrard Mackenzie has taught thousands of the stressed-out, tired and overworked how to overcome their sleeping difficulties at www.superchargeyoursleep.com/