Poor sleep could mean strokes for seniors

Poor sleep could raise stroke risk in seniors.

Poor sleep may raise seniors' risk of hardening of the brain arteries, and possibly contribute to the chances of a stroke, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined the autopsied brains of 315 people, average age 90, who had undergone at least one full week of sleep quality assessment before their death. Twenty-nine percent of them had suffered a stroke, and 61 percent had moderate-to-severe damage to blood vessels in the brain.

Those with the highest levels of sleep fragmentation -- repeated awakenings or arousals -- were 27 percent more likely to have hardening of the brain arteries. Among study participants, sleep was disrupted an average of nearly seven times an hour.

For each additional two arousals during one hour of sleep, there was a 30 percent greater likelihood of having visible signs of oxygen deprivation in the brain, the study authors said.

However, the study was not designed to prove a cause-and-effect link between poor sleep and stroke risk.

The findings were independent of other stroke and heart disease risk factors, such as weight, diabetes, smoking and high blood pressure, as well as other health conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, depression, heart failure and pain, according to the study published Jan. 14 in the journal Stroke.

"The forms of brain injury that we observed are important because they may not only contribute to the risk of stroke but also to chronic progressive cognitive and motor impairment," lead investigator Dr. Andrew Lim, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Toronto, said in a journal news release.

"However, there are several ways to view these findings: sleep fragmentation may impair the circulation of blood to the brain, poor circulation of blood to the brain may cause sleep fragmentation, or both may be caused by another underlying risk factor," said Lim, who is also a neurologist and scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto.

While the findings suggest that sleep monitoring could help identify seniors at risk for stroke, further research is needed to clarify a number of areas.

One expert praised the research, but added that it wasn't the last word on the topic.

"This is an excellent study, highly provocative, but not definitive because of the design, as mentioned by the authors themselves," said Dr. Richard Libman, vice chairman of neurology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

"There appears to be a clear association between poor sleep [sleep fragmentation] and hardening of the arteries and risk of stroke," Libman said. "As noted, the direction of this association is uncertain.

"Sleep, to some degree, is within our control and we should all make attempts to improve the quality of our sleep," he added.

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Sleep disorders are more common in racial/ethic minorities

According to a recent study, sleep disturbances occur more frequently in middle-aged and older adults who are racial or ethnic minorities.

A new study suggests that sleep disturbances and undiagnosed sleep apnea are common among middle-aged and older adults in the U.S., and these sleep problems occur more frequently among racial/ethnic minorities.

Results show that 34 percent of participants had moderate or severe sleep-disordered breathing measured by polysomnography, and 31 percent had short sleep duration with less than 6 hours per night measured by actigraphy. Validated questionnaires also showed that 23 percent reported having insomnia, and 14 percent reported excessive daytime sleepiness. Only 9 percent of participants reported being told by a doctor that they had sleep apnea.

After adjustment for sex, age, and study site, blacks were most likely to have short sleep duration of less than six hours, and they were more likely than whites to have sleep apnea syndrome, poor sleep quality, and daytime sleepiness. Hispanics and Chinese were more likely than whites to have sleep-disordered breathing and short sleep duration, but Chinese were least likely to report having insomnia.

"Our findings underscore the very high prevalence of undiagnosed sleep disturbances in middle-aged and older adults, and identify racial/ethnic disparities that include differences in short sleep duration, sleep apnea and daytime sleepiness," said lead author Dr. Xiaoli Chen, research fellow in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

Study results are published in the June issue of the journalSleep.

The study population was recruited from six U.S. communities and comprised 2,230 racially/ethnically diverse men and women who were between the ages of 54 and 93 years. Data gathered by polysomnography, actigraphy and validated questionnaires were obtained between 2010 and 2013.

According to Dr. Chen and her colleagues, this is the first study that has comprehensively evaluated objective measures of sleep apnea, short sleep, and poor sleep, as well as subjective measures of habitual snoring, insomnia, and daytime sleepiness in a multi-ethnic U.S. population that includes Chinese Americans. Results suggest that sleep disturbances may contribute to health disparities among U.S. adults.

"As sleep apnea has been implicated as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and mortality, our findings highlight the need to consider undiagnosed sleep apnea in middle-aged and older adults, with potential value in developing strategies to screen and improve recognition in groups such as in Chinese and Hispanic populations," said senior author Dr. Susan Redline, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and an award from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).

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Study: Older women with sleep disordered breathing find it harder to perform activities

A study shows that older women who have sleep disordered breathing find it harder to perform daily activities.

Older women with disordered breathing during sleep were found to be at greater risk of decline in the ability to perform daily activities, such as grocery shopping and meal preparation, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of California, San Francisco.

The study was published Nov. 6 in the online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The findings are notable given the aging of the population -- an estimated 3.7 million Americans will turn 65 in 2015, and by 2030, 19 percent of the U.S. population will be 65 or older -- and the fact that sleep-disordered breathing is treatable. Older adults are as much as four times as likely as middle-aged individuals to have problems with breathing during sleep.

Sleep-disordered breathing involves repeated interruptions or decreases in breathing during sleep, which often leads to fragmented sleep and hypoxemia, or low blood oxygen levels. Doctors rate the severity of sleep-disordered breathing with the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), which reflects the number of breathing interruptions (apneas) and the number of significant decreases in breathing (hypopneas) per hour of sleep.

The study found that women with an AHI on the moderate to severe side, with 15 or more breathing disruptions per hour of sleep, had a 2.2 times greater odds of decline in daily activity functions during the evaluation period, which averaged five years between baseline evaluation and follow-up.

"Because sleep-disordered breathing can be treated effectively, it is possible that treatment could help prevent decline in important areas of functioning that allow older adults to remain independent," says Adam Spira, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the study's lead author. "As is often the case, more research is needed to investigate this possibility."

Because the study was observational, the researchers can't conclusively state that sleep-disordered breathing caused the functional decline, but the research does point to a strong link.

Earlier studies involving older men have linked sleep-disordered breathing with frailty and death. The authors believe this is one of the first studies to assess the impact of sleep-disordered breathing on decline in older women's ability to perform basic functions associated with independent living.

The study included 302 women, with a mean age of 82.3 years. At the start of the study, participants underwent an in-home sleep evaluation. They were also asked whether they had any difficulty performing daily activities, including heavy housework, shopping and preparing meals, or any challenges with mobility, such as walking several blocks or climbing or descending stairs. Participants' self-reported daily activities and mobility were assessed once again in a follow-up evaluation.

The researchers say they believe it is the low blood-oxygen levels caused by sleep-disordered breathing that cause the trouble with daily tasks, and not sleep fragmentation, which is also increased by sleep-disordered breathing.

The authors note that women who reported no difficulties with daily activities during their baseline evaluation but a moderate-to-high AHI had a somewhat higher risk of reporting deterioration in daily-activity function in the follow-up evaluation. No links between sleep-disordered breathing severity and decline in mobility were observed.

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Study: Self-reported sleep issues increase Alzheimer's riskhttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/01/article-2108664-11FCB218000005DC-905_468x338.jpg

According to a study, older males self-reporting sleep issues increases his risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

In a new study, researchers from Uppsala University demonstrate that elderly men with self-reported sleep disturbances run a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than men without self-reported sleep disturbances. The results are published in the scientific journal Alzheimer's & Dementia.

The researchers followed more than 1,000 men, who were initially 50 year old, between the years 1970 and 2010. The results of the study show that self-reported sleep disturbances were linked to an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease during the 40-year follow-up period, particularly if they occurred late in life. The data suggest that a regular good night's sleep could support brain health in men.

'We demonstrate that men with self-reported sleep disturbances run a 1.5-fold higher risk to develop Alzheimer's disease than those without reports of sleep disturbances during a 40-year follow-up period. The later the self-reported sleep disturbance was found the higher the risk was for developing Alzheimer's disease. These findings suggest that strategies aimed at improving sleep quality in late life may help reduce the risk to develop Alzheimer's disease', says Christian Benedict, sleep researcher at Uppsala University, who led the study.

"Importantly, there are several lifestyle factors, such as exercise, that can influence your brain's health. Thus, it must be borne in mind that a multifaceted lifestyle approach comprising good sleep habits is essential for maintaining brain health as you age," says Christian Benedict.

In an earlier article published in the journal Sleep, Christian Benedict and colleagues showed that a single night of total sleep deprivation increased blood concentrations of brain molecules in young men that typically rise in blood upon acute brain damage.

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Study: Traumatic brain injury and dementia in older adults

A study shows that older adults who previously had a traumatic brain injury are at a higher risk of developing dementia.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) appears to be associated with an increased risk of dementia in adults 55 years and older, according to a study published online by JAMA Neurology.

Controversy exists about whether there is a link between a single TBI and the risk of developing dementia because of conflicting study results. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that Americans 55 years and older account for more than 60 percent of all hospitalizations for TBI, with the highest rates of TBI-related emergency department (ED) visits, inpatient stays and deaths happening among those patients 75 years and older. Therefore, understanding the effects of a recent TBI and the subsequent development of dementia among middle or older adults has important public health implications.

Researchers Raquel C. Gardner, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues examined the risk of dementia among adults 55 years and older with recent TBI compared with adults with non-TBI body trauma (NTT), which was defined as fractures but not of the head or neck. The study included 164,661 patients identified in a statewide California administrative health database of ED and inpatient visits.

In the study, a total of 51,799 patients with trauma (31.5 percent) had TBI. Of those, 4,361 patients (8.4 percent) developed dementia compared with 6,610 patients (5.9 percent) with NTT. The average time from trauma to dementia diagnosis was 3.2 years and it was shorter in the TBI group compared with the NTT group (3.1 vs. 3.3 years). Moderate to severe TBI was associated with increased risk of dementia at 55 years or older, while mild TBI at 65 years or older increased the dementia risk.

"Whether a person with TBI recovers cognitively or develops dementia, however, is likely dependent on multiple additional risk and protective factors, ranging from genetics and medical comorbidities to environmental exposures and specific characteristics of the TBI itself," the authors note.

Editorial: Role of Big Data in Understanding Late-Life Cognitive Decline

In a related editorial, Steven T. DeKosky, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, writes: "In this issue of JAMA Neurology, Gardner and colleagues used a very large database to examine the risk of dementia following significant trauma, specifically whether body trauma (fractures) or traumatic brain injury (TBI) differed in dementia incidence during follow-up."

"Unfortunately, there was not a nontrauma control group included, which may have answered the question of whether NTT (i.e. body trauma itself) raised the risk of dementia significantly above age-equivalent controls without nonbrain trauma (perhaps from inflammation or other complications)," DeKosky continues.

"Judicious use of data by skilled researchers who are familiar with the entire range of dementia research from pathobiology to health care needs will enable us to ask important questions, evolve new or more informed queries, and both lead and complement the translational questions that are before us. Dementia is both a global problem and a pathological conundrum; thus, the complementary use of big data and basic neuroscience analyses offers the most promise," he concludes.

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Insomnia in older adults affects sleep quality

A study showed that older adults who have insomnia have their sleep quality affected, but not their sleep duration.

Reports of insomnia are common among the elderly, but a new study finds that sleep problems may stem from the quality of rest and other health concerns more than the overall amount of sleep that patients get.

An estimated 30 percent of adults report having some symptoms of insomnia, which includes difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or waking up too early and then not feeling well rested during the daytime. Prior studies suggest that nearly half of older adults report at least one insomnia symptom and that lack of restorative sleep might be linked to heart disease, falls, and declines in cognitive and daytime functioning.

The new study found discrepancies between self-reported insomnia and outcomes recorded on a sleep-monitoring device. Older adults' perception of sleep does not always match what's actually happening when a more objective assessment is used to monitor sleep patterns and behaviors.

A study, published online by Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, used data from 727 participants in the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project who were randomly invited to participate in an "Activity and Sleep Study." The activity and sleep study had two components: a self-administered sleep booklet, which included questions about the person's sleep experience, (e.g., "how often do you feel really rested when you wake up in the morning?") and 72-hours of wrist actigraphy, which is a wristwatch-like sensor that monitors sleep patterns and movements.

An author on the study, Linda Waite, the University of Chicago Lucy Flower Professor in Urban Sociology and the director of the Center on Aging at NORC at UChicago, said the researchers wanted to objectively evaluate several aspects of older adults' sleep characteristics, which is why they used the actigraphs in addition to the survey questions.

"Older adults may complain of waking up too early and not feeling rested despite accumulating substantial hours of sleep," Waite said.

The actigraph measurements showed that most of the older adults got sufficient amounts of sleep.

Even though reported sleep problems are common among older individuals, according to the survey only about 13 percent of older adults in the study said that they rarely or never feel rested when waking up in the morning. About 12 percent reported often having trouble falling asleep, 30 percent indicated they regularly had problems with waking up during the night and 13 percent reported problems with waking up too early and not being able to fall asleep again most of the time.

The actigraph provided data that showed the average duration of sleep period among the study participants was 7.9 hours and the average total sleep time was 7.25 hours. Waite said this indicates that the majority of older adults are getting the recommended amount of sleep and usually not having common sleep problems.

One other unexpected finding for the researchers was that respondents who reported waking up more frequently during the night had more total sleep time. "This suggests that a question about feeling rested may tap into other aspects of older adults' everyday health or psychological experience," said Waite.

"Our findings suggest that reports of what seem like specific sleep problems from survey questions may be more accurately viewed as indicators of general problems or dissatisfaction with sleep that may be due to other issues in their lives affecting their overall well-being. These survey questions and actigraphy may measure different aspects of sleep experience."

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Study: Seniors helped by sleep apnea treatment

A study claims that seniors are helped by sleep apnea treatments such as a CPAP.

A new study finds that continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is an effective treatment for seniors with sleep apnea.

CPAP is widely used to treat moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which the airway relaxes and narrows during sleep, causing breathing problems and interrupted sleep that leads to daytime drowsiness.

CPAP keeps the airway open by pushing a stream of air through a patient's nose via a mask that is worn during sleep. Previous research has shown that CPAP benefits middle-aged adults with sleep apnea, but there had been no studies on whether it was useful and cost-effective in seniors.

This new study of 278 sleep apnea patients aged 65 and older in the United Kingdom found that CPAP reduced their levels of daytime sleepiness and their health care costs.

"Sleep apnea can be hugely damaging to patients' quality of life and increase their risk of road accidents, heart disease and other conditions. Lots of older people might benefit from this treatment," study co-lead author Mary Morrell, a professor at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, said in a college news release.

"Many patients feel rejuvenated after using CPAP because they're able to sleep much better, and it may even improve their brain function," Morrell added.

"We think low oxygen levels at night [because of interrupted breathing] might accelerate cognitive [mental] decline in old people, and studies have found that sleep apnea causes changes in the gray matter in the brain. We're currently researching whether treatment can prevent or reverse those changes," she noted.

CPAP should be offered to seniors with sleep apnea, and more needs to be done to raise awareness of the condition, the study authors said. The study is published in the Aug. 27 online edition of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

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Suicide risk increased by sleep disorder presence

This article discusses the association seen between presence of a sleep disorder in older adults and increased suicide risk.

Sleep quality influences suicide risks for older adults, according to a research undertaken by scientists from Stanford University School of Medicine. Rebecca Bernert, the study’s author, says this is a highly treatable condition. Bernert, PhD, is the director of the Suicide Prevention Research Laboratory at Stanford. The fact that sleep disorder increases suicide risks for older adults comes after a complex research.

Another research carried earlier this year involvedblood analysis to determine suicide risks.

“Suicide is the outcome of multiple, often interacting biological, psychological and social risk factors,” Bernert said. “Disturbed sleep stands apart as a risk factor and warning sign in that it may be undone, which highlights its importance as a screening tool and potential treatment target in suicide prevention.

To reach the conclusion, the team of scientists from Stanford looked at data from 14.456 adults over 65 years old. Out of this group, they chose 400 individuals who had similar sleeping patterns to 20 people who committed suicide. Scientists followed the sleeping behavior over a 10 years period. In the end, researchers concluded that older people with sleeping disorders have a suicide risk 1.4 times higher than their counterparts with high sleep quality.

The comparison between the two groups was done by looking at a series of data obtained through interviews. The questions addressed topics such as depression signs, and mental and physical functioning. Even after taking out the depression variable, the lack of quality sleep remained an important factor determining an increased risk of committing suicide.

Suicide is associated with stigma, so people suffering suicidal thoughts or attempts have troubles talking about the issue. However, if a disturbed sleeping pattern accounts for such a high influence in determining suicide, there is a ray of hope. If trouble sleeping is not a stigmatized disorder, focusing on improving the older adults’ sleep quality might reduce the suicide rates.

The subjects involved in the study were mostly white males. A group of twenty suicide victims is surely not enough to draw the definitive conclusion that sleep disorder increases suicide risks, but is a start. Further research involving data from cases involving women and minority groups may shed additional light on the issue.

People who are at risk of committing suicide should ask for help by calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK).

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Less sleep may mean faster brain aging for older adults

When older adults get less sleep, it may mean their brains age faster according to a recent study.

Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS) have found evidence that the less older adults sleep, the faster their brains age. These findings, relevant in the context of Singapore's rapidly ageing society, pave the way for future work on sleep loss and its contribution to cognitive decline, including dementia.

Past research has examined the impact of sleep duration on cognitive functions in older adults. Though faster brain ventricle enlargement is a marker for cognitive decline and the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, the effects of sleep on this marker have never been measured.

The Duke-NUS study examined the data of 66 older Chinese adults, from the Singapore-Longitudinal Aging Brain Study(1). Participants underwent structural MRI brain scans measuring brain volume and neuropsychological assessments testing cognitive function every two years. Additionally, their sleep duration was recorded through a questionnaire. Those who slept fewer hours showed evidence of faster ventricle enlargement and decline in cognitive performance.

"Our findings relate short sleep to a marker of brain aging," said Dr June Lo, the lead author and a Duke-NUS Research Fellow. "Work done elsewhere suggests that seven hours a day(2) for adults seems to be the sweet spot for optimal performance on computer based cognitive tests. In coming years we hope to determine what's good for cardio-metabolic and long term brain health too," added Professor Michael Chee, senior author and Director of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke-NUS.

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Older migraine sufferers have more brain injuries

This article discusses that older people who suffer from migraines are more likely to have silent brain injuries which could have implications for having a stroke.

Older migraine sufferers may be more likely to have silent brain injury, according to research published in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke.

In a new study, people with a history of migraine headaches had double the odds of ischemic silent brain infarction compared to people who said they didn’t have migraines. Silent brain infarction is a brain injury likely caused by a blood clot interrupting blood flow to brain tissue. Sometimes called “silent strokes,” these injuries are symptomless and are a risk factor for future strokes.

Previous studies indicated migraine could be an important stroke risk factor for younger people.

“I do not believe migraine sufferers should worry, as the risk of ischemic stroke in people with migraine is considered small,” said Teshamae Monteith, M.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor of clinical neurology and chief of the Headache Division at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “However, those with migraine and vascular risk factors may want to pay even greater attention to lifestyle changes that can reduce stroke risk, such as exercising and eating a low-fat diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables.”

High blood pressure, another important stroke risk factor, was more common in those with migraine. But the association between migraine and silent brain infarction was also found in participants with normal blood pressure.

Because Hispanics and African-Americans are at increased stroke risk, researchers from the Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS) – a collaborative investigation between the University of Miami and Columbia University – studied a multi-ethnic group of older adults (41 percent men, average age 71) in New York City. About 65 percent of participants were Hispanic. Comparing magnetic resonance imaging results between 104 people with a history of migraine and 442 without, they found:

• A doubling of silent brain infarctions in those with migraine even after adjusting for other stroke risk factors;
• No increase in the volume of white-matter hyperintensities (small blood vessel abnormalities) that have been associated with migraine in other studies;
• Migraines with aura — changes in vision or other senses preceding the headache — wasn’t common in participants and wasn’t necessary for the association with silent cerebral infarctions.

“While the lesions appeared to be ischemic, based on their radiographic description, further research is needed to confirm our findings,” Monteith said.

The research raises the question of whether preventive treatment to reduce the severity and number of migraines could reduce the risk of stroke or silent cerebral infarction.

“We still don’t know if treatment for migraines will have an impact on stroke risk reduction, but it may be a good idea to seek treatment from a migraine specialist if your headaches are out of control,” Monteith said.

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Too much and too little sleep indicate memory problems

This article claims that both too much and too little sleep can lead to memory problems in older women.

Seniors who slept too little or too much during midlife or after are at increased risk for memory problems, as are those whose sleep habits changed over time, a new study suggests.

Researchers looked at more than 15,000 women, 70 and older, who took part in a large study of health professionals. The women were depression- and stroke-free when they underwent their initial assessment.

Participants who slept five hours or less, or nine hours or more a day -- either in midlife or later life -- had worse memory than those who slept seven hours a day. The difference in memory was equivalent to nearly two extra years of age, the researchers said.

Women whose amount of sleep changed by more than two hours a night over time had poorer memory than those who had no sleep changes, according to the study published May 1 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

"Given the importance of preserving memory into later life, it is critical to identify modifiable factors, such as sleeping habits, that may help achieve this goal," study leader Elizabeth Devore, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in a hospital news release.

"Our findings suggest that getting an 'average' amount of sleep, seven hours per day, may help maintain memory in later life and that clinical interventions based on sleep therapy should be examined for the prevention of [mental] impairment," she added.

The study adds "to our knowledge about how sleep impacts memory. More research is needed to confirm these findings and explore possible mechanisms underlying these associations," Devore concluded.

While the study found an association between sleep time during midlife and older age and memory function in older women, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

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Aging and impaired sleep

A study shows that the way that aging impairs a person's sleep may be reversible.

Sleep is essential for human health. But with increasing age, many people experience a decline in sleep quality, which in turn reduces their quality of life. In a new study publishing April 1 in the Open Access journal PLOS Biology, Scientists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biology of Ageing in Cologne have investigated the mechanisms by which ageing impairs sleep in the fruit fly. Their findings suggest that age-related sleep decline can be prevented and might even be reversible.

To uncover basic age-related sleep mechanisms, the Max Planck scientists studied the fruit flyDrosophila melanogaster, a classical model organism in ageing research. "Drosophila's sleep has many features in common with that of humans, including the decline in quality," says Luke Tain of the MPI for Biology of Ageing. "Like humans, flies sleep at night and are active during the day. We can observe when and how long flies sleep. We can also determine their sleep quality by measuring how often they wake. This allows us to study the effects of specific substances or other sleep-influencing factors such as age and genetic disposition."

Ageing researchers Athanasios Metaxakis, Luke Tain, and Sebastian Grönke, in the department of MPI Director Linda Partridge, discovered that a reduced activity in the IIS signalling pathway leads to improved sleep quality at night and higher activity levels at day. A signalling pathway is a biological method of transferring information, and via those pathways, the cell can respond to external conditions like the state of food supply. "In our study, we described the role of the IIS pathway in regulating sleep and activity through the neurotransmitters octopamine and dopamine," explains Tain. "What makes this pathway so interesting to us is the fact that it is evolutionarily conserved. This means that its components and functions are similar in diverse species from simple organisms like fruit flies to mice and even humans. Furthermore, we were able to improve sleep quality by administering therapeutic agents."

Moreover, the scientists found out that day activity and night sleep are regulated by two distinct signalling pathways, night sleep being mediated through TOR and dopaminergic signalling. Surprisingly, if TOR's activity is acutely inhibited by treatment with the therapeutic agent Rapamycin, sleep quality improves even in old flies, suggesting that age-related sleep decline is not only preventable, but also reversible.

The scientists will follow up on their findings. Luke Tain: "Given the high evolutionarily conservation of IIS and TOR function, our results implicate potential therapeutic targets to improve sleep quality in humans. This would be our longer-term goal. The next step however, is to find out whether these mechanisms also work in higher animals like mice."

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Study: Poor sleep is linked to cognitive decline in older men

A study found that poor sleep quality in old men is liked to their cognitive decline over a few years.

A new study of older men found a link between poor sleep quality and the development of cognitive decline over three to four years.

Results show that higher levels of fragmented sleep and lower sleep efficiency were associated with a 40 to 50 percent increase in the odds of clinically significant decline in executive function, which was similar in magnitude to the effect of a five-year increase in age. In contrast, sleep duration was not related to subsequent cognitive decline.

"It was the quality of sleep that predicted future cognitive decline in this study, not the quantity," said lead author Terri Blackwell, MA, senior statistician at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute (CPMCRI) in San Francisco, Calif. "With the rate of cognitive impairment increasing and the high prevalence of sleep problems in the elderly, it is important to determine prospective associations with sleep and cognitive decline."

The study involved 2,822 community-dwelling older men at six clinical centers in the U.S. Participants had a mean age of 76 years. The study is published in the April 1 issue of the journal Sleep.

"This study provides an important reminder that healthy sleep involves both the quantity and quality of sleep," said American Academy of Sleep Medicine President Dr. M. Safwan Badr. "As one of the pillars of a healthy lifestyle, sleep is essential for optimal cognitive functioning."

The population-based, longitudinal study was conducted by a research team led by Dr. Katie Stone, senior scientist at CPMCRI in San Francisco, Calif. Institutions represented by study collaborators include the University of California, San Francisco; University of California, San Diego; Harvard Medical School; University of Minnesota; and several Veterans Affairs medical centers.

An average of five nights of objective sleep data were collected from each participant using a wrist actigraph. Cognitive function assessment included evaluation of attention and executive function using the Trails B test. According to the authors, executive function is the ability for planning or decision making, error correction or trouble shooting, and abstract thinking. Results were adjusted for potential confounding factors such as depressive symptoms, comorbidities and medication use.

The underlying mechanisms relating disturbed sleep to cognitive decline remain unknown, the authors noted. They added that additional research is needed to determine if these associations hold after a longer follow-up period.

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CDC's report on sleeping pills

This article discusses the recent report by the CDC on sleep pill usage that showed 4% of adults have used sleep aids in the past month, that more older people use sleeping aids, and that more women than men use sleep aids.

A new study shows that many Americans continually look to sleep aids in order to get a good night's rest. In fact, around 4 percent of Americans use prescription sleep aids, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). Yet many still question the drug's side effects and effectiveness.

A national survey between 2005 and 2010 showed that about 4 percent of adults ages 20 and over reported taking prescription sleep aids in the past 30 days. Approximately 2 percent of the younger age group, 20 to 39, reported using sleeping pills, while 6 percent ranging in age from 50 to 59 reported using them. Ages 80 and up reported a 7 percent use.

The study showed that the rate of use also depended on gender, race and ethnicity. For instance, about 5 percent of women used prescription sleep aids compared to about 3 percent of men. While adults were also more likely to use sleep aids than black or Mexican-American men.

"More authorities think that use of sleeping pills should be minimized," said Dr. Daniel Kripke, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, via Live Science.

Prescription sleep aids can be used as a treatment for those who have trouble falling asleep as many of the medications can work by suppressing activities in the nervous system. In fact, some estimates show that 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders or deprivation. This problem can greatly harm their daily function and may also adversely affect their health, according to CDC researchers.

Researchers looked at 33,000 people to find that the use of common sleep medications caused a greater risk of dying prematurely and even some type of cancer.

The CDC survey showed that when people slept for durations of greater or less than 7 hours, sleep aids use often increased. As for people who slept less than five hours a day, they were more likely to sleep nine hours a day and had the highest use of prescription sleep aid compared to those who reported getting seven hours a day.

Findings also showed that one in six people were diagnosed with a sleep disorder and up to one in eight reported problems with sleep. However, it's not clear whether the medications are effective at helping patients get a good night's rest or helping them feel refreshed in the morning.

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