Author Interviews, Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorders, Weight Research / 15.06.2016
Late Sleepers Don’t Have Higher BMI
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Kelly Glazer Baron[/caption]
Kelly Glazer Baron, PhD, MPH, C. B.S.M.
Diplomate, Academy of Cognitive Therapy
Northwestern University
Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, IL 60611
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: In contrast to several previous studies, being a late sleeper was not associated with higher BMI (good news for late sleepers!!) but it was associated with less healthy behaviors, more fast food, fewer vegetables, lower dairy. It may be possible that these late sleepers who are able to get enough sleep can compensate for their poor diet by controlling overall calories or it could possibly lead to weight gain over time if their habits continue over time.
Dr. Kelly Glazer Baron[/caption]
Kelly Glazer Baron, PhD, MPH, C. B.S.M.
Diplomate, Academy of Cognitive Therapy
Northwestern University
Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, IL 60611
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: In contrast to several previous studies, being a late sleeper was not associated with higher BMI (good news for late sleepers!!) but it was associated with less healthy behaviors, more fast food, fewer vegetables, lower dairy. It may be possible that these late sleepers who are able to get enough sleep can compensate for their poor diet by controlling overall calories or it could possibly lead to weight gain over time if their habits continue over time.
Dr. Anna Alkozei[/caption]
Anna Alkozei, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
SCAN Lab, Psychiatry Department
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85724-5002
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Alkozei: We know that exposure to blue wavelength light, which is similar to the kind of light that we get on a bright sunny day, can improve attention and alertness during the day as well as at night. We wanted to extend previous findings by investigating whether blue light exposure can affect cognitive functioning after the blue light exposure period had already ended. We found that thirty minutes of exposure to blue wavelength light during the day, in comparison to an amber light exposure led to subsequently faster reaction times on a cognitive task forty minutes after the light exposure had already ended. Participants who were exposed to blue light also showed more efficient responding, which means they answered more items correctly per second, than individuals who were exposed to amber placebo light. Finally, we also found that individuals who were exposed to blue light showed greater activation within the prefrontal cortex when performing the task, an area necessary for optimal cognitive performance, than individuals who were exposed to amber light.
Anna Therese Lehnich[/caption]
Anna-Therese Lehnich
Zentrum für Klinische Epidemiologie (ZKE)
c/o Institut für Medizinische Informatik
Biometrie undEpidemiologie (IMIBE)
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Sleep disturbances and their consequences are often underestimated but they are of high importance with respect to public health. We were interested in the question whether drugs labeled as sleep disturbing in the summary of product characteristics actually lead to more sleep disorders like difficulties falling asleep, difficulties maintaining sleep, and early morning arousal. To answer this question, we analyzed data of 4,221 persons from Germany.
Dr. Richard Schwab[/caption]
Richard J. Schwab, MD
Professor, Department of Medicine
Division of Sleep Medicine
Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Division
Co-Director, Penn Sleep Center
University of Pennsylvania Medical Center
Philadelphia, PA 19104
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Schwab: Hypoglossal nerve stimulation is a pacemaker (a tiny generator and a sensing lead) placed in the right side of the chest, but instead of using electrical pulses to control the heart, the device stimulates the hypoglossal nerve which is the nerve that controls the motion of the tongue. Patients use a remote control to turn on the device before going to sleep and turn it off upon waking up. Stimulation of the tongue moves the tongue forward which enlarges the upper airway.
Dr. David Earnest[/caption]
David Earnest, Ph.D.
Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics
Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Earnest: When body clocks are disrupted, as they are when people engage in shift work or go to bed and get up at radically different times every few days, more severe ischemic strokes can result.
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Dr. Earnest: Whenever possible, go to bed and get up at the same time each day and keep regular mealtimes. If you do need to keep an irregular schedule, it is especially important to be mindful of stroke risk and try especially hard to eliminate other risk factors, such as hypertension and obesity.
Dr. S. S. Hawkins[/caption]
Summer Sherburne Hawkins, PhD, MS
Assistant Professor
Boston College School of Social Work
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Sleep is so important for all of us—especially for children and adolescents as their brains and bodies continue to develop. Inadequate sleep is associated with a number of health problems including obesity, cognitive functioning, and chronic illnesses. Increasing the amount and quality of sleep are public health priorities in the US. Currently, school-aged children are recommended to get at least 10 hours and adolescents to get 9-10 hours of sleep daily. However, less than one third of students report getting 8 or more hours of sleep during the school week and total sleep time decreases from infancy through adulthood.
The new Healthy People 2020 ‘Sleep Health’ target only monitors adolescent sleep and there are no national data for younger children. Thus, there is little known about the age that sleep issues may begin and whether the prevalence of sleep issues is changing over time. Furthermore, only a few studies have examined the social determinants of sleep in children and adolescents, particularly whether there are differences across racial/ethnic and educational groups.
An overarching gap in the literature remains—monitoring sleep and identifying disparities across the life course. Using a nationally-representative sample of US children and adolescents, we examined trends and social determinants of inadequate sleep in 6-17-year-olds.
Dr. Wisit Cheungpasitporn[/caption]
Wisit Cheungpasitporn, MD, Nephrology Fellow
Project mentor: Stephen B. Erickson, MD
Departments of Nephrology and Hypertension
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Cheungpasitporn: The prevention and management of hypertension continue to be major public health challenges. Studies have shown the benefits of napping, including reduction of fatigue and improvement of alertness, mood and work performance. However, there have also been increasing reported associations between napping and cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, strokes, and higher mortality from all causes. The risk of hypertension in adults who regularly take a nap is controversial.
Dr. Ofir Turel[/caption]
Ofir Turel, Ph.D
Professor, Information Systems and Decision Sciences
California State University, Fullerton
Scholar in Residence, Department of Psychology
University of Southern California
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Turel: The study emerged as a response to the growing societal concern regarding potentially problematic information system use” lifestyles”, including videogame addiction, among adolescents. Much research in this domain has focused on negative psychological (e.g., reduced wellbeing, depression) and social/life functioning (e.g., reduction in normal activities, diminished school performance). Less is known regarding potential physiological outcomes of videogame addiction.
Interestingly, the increase in videogame addiction-like symptoms among adolescents happened in conjunction with an increase in sleep curtailment and obesity in this population. These are too growing concerns in North America and perhaps elsewhere. Medical research implies that these three phenomena may be related. Hence, we hypothesized that videogame addiction will be associated with increased sleep curtailment and increased abdominal adiposity; and consequently, indirectly, with cardio-metabolic deficits.
Our findings suggest that videogame addiction predicts reduced 
Dr. Anna Pease[/caption]
Dr Anna Pease
Senior Research Associate
University of Bristol
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Pease: We tried to gather evidence of whether there was an association between swaddling for sleep and SIDS. This was a review, not a new original study, but it is the first time these data have been brought together to try to quantify any risk between swaddling and SIDS. We only found 4 studies and they were quite different making it difficult to pool the results. We did find, however, that the risk of SIDS when placing infants on their side or front for sleep increased when infants were swaddled.
Dr. Jean Philippe Chaput[/caption]
Jean-Philippe Chaput, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa
Research Scientist, Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute
Ontario, Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Chaput: Folklore has associated behaviors of animals and humans, and even werewolves, to moon phases of the lunar cycle. However, the empirical evidence that the moon exerts an influence on behaviors is weak and very limited. In order to verify if the full moon is associated with sleep and physical activity of children (and possibly debunk this myth), we used a 12-country study involving 5,812 participants and providing 33,710 24-hour accelerometer recordings of sleep and activity behaviors. Overall, we observed that sleep duration was 5 minutes (1%) shorter at full moon compared to new moon, while activity behaviors were not significantly associated with the lunar cycle in this global sample of children drawn from all inhabited continents. However, the magnitude of this effect on sleep duration is unlikely to be clinically significant from a public health standpoint and people should stop worrying about the full moon.
Dr. Haicong Li[/caption]
Haicong Li
Director and Professor, Department of Geriatrics
China-Japan Friendship Hospital
Beijing, China.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Based on our clinical observations over the years, we noticed two common
phenomena:
Dr. Maurice Ohayon[/caption]
Maurice M. Ohayon, MD, DSc, PhD
Chief of the Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences
Director of the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Centre (SSERC)
John-Arrillaga PI & Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
School of Medicine, Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA 94303
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Ohayon: Artificial Lights at night are known to be powerful disruptors of the normal sleep/wake cycle. Light exposure at night acts on suppressing and delaying melatonin secretion and exciting the central nervous system.
In this study we focused on the effects of the outdoor lights at night, (such as street lights and lights, outdoor light fixtures and advertising boards) as measured at nighttime by satellite observations.
We analyzed the sleep habits of a representative sample of the American general population that had been interviewed with the artificial intelligence system Sleep-EVAL.
We found that individuals living in areas at high level of radiance, such as can be found in the downtowns of metropolitan areas, have a delayed bedtime, delayed wake up time and, overall, shorter sleep duration, than people living in areas with low nighttime radiance.
Dr. Marie St-Onge[/caption]
Marie-Pierre St-Onge, Ph.D, FAHA
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine
New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center
Institute of Human Nutrition
College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University
New York, NY 10032
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. St-Onge: We have shown that sleep affects food intake: restricting sleep increases energy intake, particularly from fat (others also find increased sugar intake). We wanted to know if the reverse was also true: does diet affect sleep at night?
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. St-Onge: Diet quality can play an important role in sleep quality. Sleep can be affect after only a single day of poor dietary intakes (high saturated fat and low fiber intakes). It is possible that improving one’s diet can also improve their sleep.
Dr. Andrew Lim[/caption]
Dr. Sunil Sharma[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Sunil Sharma MD, FAASM
Associate Professor of Medicine
Director, Pulmonary Sleep Medicine
Associate Director, Jefferson Sleep Disorders Center
Thomas Jefferson University and Hospitals
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Sharma: Congestive heart failure (CHF) is the most common cause of hospital admission and readmissions in United States. More health care dollars are spent on CHF than any other diagnosis. A large chunk of this cost is due to hospital admission. An estimated 50% of the CHF patients are readmitted within 6 months of discharge. The recent Protection Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposes penalties on hospitals for readmissions within first 30-days. It is therefore imperative to find ways to impact the natural history of the disease.
Sleep disordered breathing is a common disorder associated with 
Dr. Kunisaki[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Ken M. Kunisaki , MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine
University of Minnesota
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Kunisaki : Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a very common condition that is the result of recurrent complete or partial closure of the upper airway during sleep. OSA leads to poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness.
A previous study suggested that OSA is more common in the winter, but there were no vitamin D measurements in that study, which seemed potentially relevant since many people have lower vitamin D levels in the winter, due to less sunlight exposure in the winter. Several studies have also shown that people with low vitamin D levels have worse muscle function. Since muscles are partially responsible for keeping the upper airway open during sleep, we wondered whether people with low vitamin D levels might have weaker upper airway muscles and therefore be more prone to having OSA.
In our study, we found that indeed, persons with OSA had lower vitamin D levels than those without OSA, but this was explained by obesity. In other words, the low vitamin D levels seen in OSA patients is likely just a marker of obesity and not likely related to the presence or absence of OSA.
Dr. Soroush Zaghi[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Soroush Zaghi, MD
Department of Head and Neck Surgery
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
MedicalResearch: What is the central message for clinicians and surgeons from your results?
Dr. Zaghi: Multiple studies from different practitioners and institutions agree that Maxillomandibular Advancement (MMA) is a highly effective surgical option for patients with obstructive sleep apnea who cannot tolerate positive pressure therapy and have not found success with other surgical procedures.
Prof. Chiang[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof. Bor-Luen Chiang
Vice Superintendent, National Taiwan University Hospital
Professor of Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine and Pediatrics
National Taiwan University
Attending Physician, Department of Medical research
National Taiwan University Hospital and
Yung-Sen Chang, MD MPH
Attending physician, Department of Pediatrics,
Taipei City Hospital Renai Br.
Adjunct Attending Physician, Department of Pediatrics
National Taiwan University Children’s Hospital
Adjunct Instructor, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Prof. Chang: Sleep disturbance is a common disorder in the children with atopic dermatitis (AD) (reported in 47 to 60%), but no effective way of managing this problem had been established. In our preceding study, we found that lower nocturnal melatonin level was significantly associated with sleep disturbance in the patients with AD. Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland which plays an important role in sleep regulation. In addition to sleep-inducing effects, melatonin also has anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties which might be helpful for the management o fatopic dermatitis. Furthermore, melatonin has an excellent safety profile with minimal adverse effects, making it a good choice for children. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate whether melatonin is effective for improving the sleep problems and the dermatitis severity in children with 