Fwd: Effects of Scrimping on Shut-Eye

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Scrimping on shut-eye could put you at risk

for obesity, diabetes or heart disease.

 

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Sun Staff

Originally published May 5, 2003

 

 

 

When Paul Harris stays out late on a gig, he usually

finds himself " in a fog " the next day. After getting

only four hours' sleep, the 43-year-old musician and

social activist says his singing voice and creativity

suffer.

" I'm not as sharp, " he says, sipping espresso diluted

with decaf in a Charles Village coffee shop. " My body

isn't running the way it should be. "

 

Harris has plenty of company. While many of us have

trouble getting a good night's sleep, many more scrimp

on shut-eye because of work schedules, or simply by

choice. American adults sleep less than seven hours a

night on average, surveys show, and a third limit

shut-eye to less than six hours to cram in more work

or play.

 

Although some people do fine with less sleep, eight

hours is still considered the norm - and there's a

price to be paid for not getting it. Recent research

indicates that chronic undersleeping does more than

undermine productivity or make people more irritable

and prone to dozing off. It also increases the risk of

accidents and may contribute to serious, long-term

problems such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

 

" Ours is a sleep-deprived society, " says Dr. Steven M.

Scharf, medical director of the University of Maryland

Sleep Disorders Center. " We know that sleep is

essential to life. Deprive rats of sleep, and they

die. "

 

Up to 60 percent of Americans report at least

occasional sleep problems, according to the National

Sleep Foundation. About 10 percent of adults suffer

from chronic insomnia, which means they can't get to

sleep, or they can't stay asleep through the night.

About 6 percent have obstructive sleep apnea, in which

the airways collapse repeatedly and disrupt normal

slumber.

 

Willingly deprived or not, those who don't get enough

sleep may be undermining their health, researchers

say.

 

 

Nurses study

 

A national study published this year tracking 71,617

nurses found that women who got five hours of sleep or

less nightly over a decade had a 39 percent greater

risk of heart attack than those who managed eight

hours.

 

Oddly, nurses who got nine hours or more also had more

heart attacks than the eight-hour group. Dr. David

White of Harvard Medical School, one of the study's

authors, called that finding puzzling.

 

" There's not an obvious answer, unless there's some

subtle sleep disorder we can't think of that's making

them spend nine or 10 hours in bed, " he said.

 

The nurses' study was the largest to date linking

sleep deprivation with heart disease. Other short-term

lab studies may suggest why it happens.

 

Scientists at the University of Chicago have found

that building up a sleep " debt " over a matter of days

can impair metabolism and disrupt hormone levels.

After restricting 11 healthy young adults to four

hours' sleep for six nights, researchers found their

ability to process glucose (sugar) in the blood had

declined - in some cases to the level of diabetics.

 

The sleep-deprived subjects also showed increased

levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which were

typical of much older people.

 

Cortisol is linked to problems that include insulin

resistance and memory impairment. So researchers

concluded that sleep loss may increase the severity of

such age-related chronic health problems as obesity,

diabetes and hypertension.

 

The notion that lack of sleep disturbs the body's

chemistry does not surprise sleep specialists, who

have concluded that sleep is much more than the

absence of being awake.

 

For example, researchers who scanned sleepers' brains

found that the areas involved in learning new tasks

remain active in slumber, suggesting that sleep plays

a role in storing information for future retrieval.

 

 

Growth hormone

 

Many believe sleep helps restore biological processes

that are degraded during the day. In deep sleep, for

instance, the pituitary gland releases a growth

hormone, which helps build bone and muscle tissue.

Growth hormone deficiencies, on the other hand, can

lead to loss of energy and muscle, and to obesity,

research shows.

 

University of Chicago researchers found that as people

age, the proportion of time they spend in deep sleep

declines - from 20 percent for men under age 25 to

less than 5 percent in men age 35 and over. Not

surprisingly, the production of growth hormone is 75

percent lower in the 35-and-over group.

 

Severe sleep " debts " also tend to alter people's

lifestyle in unhealthy ways.

 

" Basically healthy adults who are acutely

sleep-restricted tend to eat more, and what they eat

more of tends to be carbohydrates and high in fat, "

says Dr. Carl E. Hunt, director of the National Center

on Sleep Disorders Research in Washington.

 

 

Impairments

 

Few people, though, are aware of how short-changing

sleep can affect their ability to function.

 

One study published this year found that after two

weeks of four-hour sleep, a group of healthy young

adults performed as poorly on tests of alertness,

memory and mental agility as those who had gone

without any sleep for two nights. Nor did they seem

aware of their gradually deteriorating performance.

 

Declines in alertness, ability to think and learn have

been well documented in sleep-deprivation studies.

Those impairments can be dangerous: More than 100,000

auto accidents a year may be fatigue-related, the

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says.

 

" Our grandmothers told us, 'Get your sleep so you can

stay healthy and grow tall,' and we're finding out

that's true, " says Dr. David Neubauer, associate

director of the sleep disorders center at Johns

Hopkins Hospital's Bayview campus.

 

Sleep deprivation is a matter of life and death in

war. Soldiers in Iraq had to grab naps whenever they

could, since they were often on the move at night.

Pilots pop " go pills " to stay alert during sorties - a

practice that is the subject of some medical

controversy. Neither is a long-term replacement for

regular sleep, experts say.

 

The causes and remedies for sleep disorders vary. In

apnea, the problem may result from weight gain that

adds fat tissue around the airways.

 

Or it may be enlarged tonsils that restrict the flow

of air, as Desiree Windsor found after having her

sleep monitored at the University of Maryland's sleep

lab at Specialty Hospital in the Inner Harbor.

 

" I'm having trouble sleeping at night, " the

23-year-old day-care worker said, adding that she

snores and frequently stops breathing briefly - two

symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea. Removing her

tonsils is a likely solution, while other apnea

sufferers get help from devices that gently pump air

into a mask they wear at night.

 

Short-term insomnia may be the result of stress,

medication side effects or other environmental

factors. Chronic insomnia is more complex, and tends

to be more common among older people, women and those

with a history of depression.

 

For those who are sleep-deprived by choice, there's a

relatively simple solution, says Maryland's Scharf.

 

" We live in a jazzed-up, overstimulated society, " he

says. " I like the old days, when they played 'The

Star-Spangled Banner' [on TV], and everybody went to

bed. "

 

For more information on sleep deprivation and other

sleep disorders, visit these Web sites:

www.umm.edu/sleep, www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/ncsdr/,

www.sleepfoundation.org.

 

 

 

2003, The Baltimore Sun

 

 

 

 

 

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