Rhythmic Human
clock | October 4, 2006Since every chemical induces a different response in the body dependent on the time of day when it is administered, I am not surprised that this also applies to caffeine:
A new study at the Université de Montréal has concluded that people drinking coffee to get through a night shift or a night of studying will strongly hurt their recovery sleep the next day. The study published in the current issue of Neuropsychopharmacology was conducted by Dr. Julie Carrier from the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal. Dr. Carrier runs the Chronobiology Laboratory at the Hôpital du…
clock | September 20, 2006Over 1.6 Million Americans Use Alternative Medicine For Insomnia Or Trouble Sleeping:
A recent analysis of national survey data reveals that over 1.6 million American adults use some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to treat insomnia or trouble sleeping according to scientists at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health.
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Those using CAM to treat insomnia or trouble sleeping were more likely to use biologically based therapies (nearly 65 percent), such as herbal…
clock | September 19, 2006So, is extreme "larkiness" due to overphosphorilation or underphosphorilation of PERIOD2?
Hypotheses get tested, studies conflict with each other and, in the end, there is a resolution. In this case, we are still waiting for resolution. Science marches on.
clock | September 15, 2006Indian Creek dedicates new Upper School:
Mrs. Mattingly highlighted the major components of the college preparatory curriculum that fills the school day beginning at 8:50 a.m. and continues until 5 p.m. The hours are designed to accommodate teens' circadian rhythms.
clock | September 15, 2006Students not getting enough sleep:
College students may believe they are being more productive when they sleep less, but in reality it is causing harm to their bodies. The National Sleep Foundation points out that receiving less than six hours of sleep a night is associated with 1.7 times greater risk of disease, according to www.sleepfoundation.org. The chance of decreased academic performance, driving accidents, colds and flu and mental illnesses are all increased.
Workplace fatigue risky business at 30,000 ft.:
Fatigue is worsened when lack of sleep is coupled with a disruption to the body…
clock | September 11, 2006The fourth part of a four-part series on the topic, this one from April 02, 2006....
This being the National Sleep Awareness Week and on the heels of the recent study on sleep of adolescents, it is not surprising that this issue is all over the media, including blogs, these days.
I have written about it recently several times. I present some science and some opinion here and add a little more science and much more opinion here.
You can look at media coverage here and listen to an excellent podcast linked here. Some basic underlying science is covered here.
All of this targets highschoolers…
clock | September 11, 2006This is the third part of the series on the topic, from April 01, 2006...
This being the National Sleep Awareness Week and in the heels of the recent study on sleep of adolescents, it is not surprising that this issue is all over the media, including blogs, these days.
I have covered this issue a couple of times last week, e.g., here, here and here. Recently, Lance Mannion wrote an interesting post on the topic, which reminded me also of an older post by Ezra Klein in which the commenters voiced all the usual arguments heard in this debate.
There are a couple of more details that I have not…
clock | September 11, 2006
Here is the second post on the topic, from March 28, 2006. A couple of links are broken due to medieval understanding of permalinks by newspapers, but you will not miss too much, I hope....
Health Journal: Doctors probe why it's hard for many kids to get up (also Night Owls: Disorder may cause teens to sleep less):
"The parents get stigmatized as not having control over their kids when they can't get them to school in time," says James Wyatt, co-director of the sleep-disorders center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago who is conducting research looking for ways to better diagnose…
clock | September 11, 2006
Earlier this year, during the National Sleep Awareness Week, I wrote a series of posts about the changes in sleep schedules in adolescents. Over the next 3-4 hours, I will repost them all, starting with this one from March 26, 2006. Also check my more recent posts on the subject here and here...
I am glad to see that there is more and more interest in and awareness of sleep research. Just watch Sanjay Gupta on CNN or listen to the recent segment on Weekend America on NPR.
At the same time, I am often alarmed at the levels of ignorance still rampant in the general population, and even more…
clock | September 10, 2006This kind of ignorant bleating makes me froth at the mouth every time - I guess it is because this is my own blogging "turf".
One of the recurring themes of my blog is the disdain I have for people who equate sleep with laziness out of their Puritan core of understanding of the world, their "work ethic" which is a smokescreen for power-play, their vicious disrespect for everyone who is not like them, and the nasty feeling of superiority they have towards the teenagers just because they are older, bigger, stronger and more powerful than the kids. Not to forget the idiotic notions that kids…
clock | September 10, 2006Do pilots get enough rest?:
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The federal rules on pilot duty hours and rest periods aren't the most comprehensible of reads.
One rule allows airlines to schedule pilots to fly for eight hours or less during a 24-hour period without a "rest period during those eight hours." Another gives pilots who fly for more than eight hours in a 24-hour stretch a break of at least twice the number of hours flown, either "at or before the end of" the eight hours. Pilots who fly more than eight hours during a 24-hour period must receive 18 hours of rest…
clock | September 8, 2006The Center for Health Design Research has issued its Report on The Impact of Light on Outcomes in Healthcare Settings. You can download the entire report as PDF:
Light impacts human health and performance by enabling performance of visual tasks, controlling the body's circadian system, affecting mood and perception, and by enabling critical chemical reactions in the body. Studies show that higher light levels are linked with better performance of complex visual tasks and light requirements increase with age.
By controlling the body's circadian system, light impacts outcomes in healthcare…
clock | September 7, 2006This is a good article about changes in sleep patterns that occur with old age.
clock | September 5, 2006
Hypotheses leading to more hypotheses (from March 19, 2006 - the Malaria Day):
I have written a little bit about malaria before, e.g, here and here, but this is my special Malaria Action Day post, inspired by a paper [1] that Tara sent me some weeks ago and I never got to write about it till now.
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In a journal called "Medical Hypotheses" Kumar and Sharma [1] propose that jet-lagged travellers may be more susceptible to getting infected with malaria. They write:
Rapid travel across several time zones leads to…
clock | August 31, 2006Melatonin improves mood in winter depression:
Alfred Lewy and his colleagues in the OHSU Sleep and Mood Disorders Lab set out to test the hypothesis that circadian physiological rhythms become misaligned with the sleep/wake cycle during the short days of winter, causing some people to become depressed.
Usually these rhythms track to the later dawn in winter, resulting in a circadian phase delay with respect to sleep similar to what happens flying westward. Some people appear to be tracking to the earlier dusk of winter, causing a similar amount of misalignment but in the phase-advance…
clock | August 28, 2006
You probably realize by now that my expertise is in clocks and calendars of birds, but blogging audience forces me to occasionally look into human clocks from a medical perspective. Reprinted below the fold are three old Circadiana posts about the connection between circadian clocks and the bipolar disorder, the third one being the longest and most involved. Here are the links to the original posts if you want to check the comments (especially the first comment on the third post):
January 18, 2005: Clocks and Bipolar Disorder
August 16, 2005: Bipolar? Avoid night shift
February 19, 2006:…
clock | August 21, 2006This list, written on December 17, 2005, is still quite up-to-date. There are also some more specialized books which are expensive, and many of those I'd like to have one day, but I cannot afford them (though I have placed a couple of them on my wish list, just in case I see a cheap copy come up for sale):
I know the holidays are coming in just a couple of days, but perhaps you still have time to order a book or two for your friends and family.
There are tons of books about sleep out there, mostly of suspect quality. Books about clocks tend to be either very old (thus out-dated) or far too…
clock | August 17, 2006Many Commercial Drivers Have Impaired Performance Due To Lack Of Sleep
Truck drivers who routinely get too little sleep or suffer from sleep apnea show signs of fatigue and impaired performance that can make them a hazard on the road, according to a major new study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study results are published in the August 15th issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
clock | August 16, 2006Different strokes occur at different times
Different types of strokes occur most often at different times of day say scientists at Iwate Medical University in Iwate, Japan.
The team based their findings on data from 12,957 cases of first-ever stroke diagnosed by CT or MRI scans and drawn from the Iwate Stroke Registry between 1991 and 1996.The researchers chose patients who had experienced cerebral infarctions, or ischemic strokes, where cells die because blood flow to the brain is restricted, and two kinds of hemorrhagic strokes: intercerebral hemorrhages that occur within the brain, and…
clock | August 10, 2006This is an interesting idea:
A novel way to advance the circadian cycle has been proposed as a way to solve the problem associated with the early starting times of middle and high schools. It has been recognized for some time that teen age students do not really wake up until well past the time they physically arrive at school. Researchers at Brown University have found that the student's blood contains large amounts of the sleep hormone, melatonin. Researchers at the Lighting Innovations Institute of John Carroll University are seeking funding to carry out a study to find out if their method…