Lighten up at Work for Better Health
Posted by on August 13, 2014 - 2:26pm

Office workers with more light exposure at the office had longer sleep duration, better sleep quality, more physical activity and better quality of life compared to office workers with less light exposure in the workplace, reports a new study from Northwestern Medicine and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The study highlights the importance of exposure to natural light to employee health and the priority architectural designs of office environments should place on natural daylight exposure for workers, the study authors said.

Employees with windows in the workplace received 173 percent more white light exposure during work hours and slept an average of 46 minutes more per night than employees who did not have the natural light exposure in the workplace. There also was a trend for workers in offices with windows to have more physical activity than those without windows.

Workers without windows reported poorer scores than their counterparts on quality of life measures related to physical problems and vitality, as well as poorer outcomes on measures of overall sleep quality and sleep disturbances.

The study was reported in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine in June.

“There is increasing evidence that exposure to light, during the day --particularly in the morning -- is beneficial to your health via its effects on mood, alertness and metabolism,” said senior study author Phyllis Zee, M.D., a Northwestern Medicine neurologist and sleep specialist and member of the Women's Health Research Institute Leadership Council.. “Workers are a group at risk because they are typically indoors often without access to natural or even artificial bright light for the entire day. The study results confirm that light during the natural daylight hours has powerful effects on health.”

- See more at: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2014/08/natural-light-in-...

Always Tired? You may have Sleep Apnea
Posted by on May 22, 2014 - 9:40am

Your spouse or partner says your snoring is driving him nuts.   You wake up feeling unrested and irritable.

These are common signs that you may have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a sleep disorder that—left untreated—can take its toll on the body and mind.

Untreated OSA has been linked to high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, work-related accidents and depression. According to the American Sleep Association, OSA affects more than 12 million Americans.  There is also a new study that found that women with apnea may have an increased risk for stroke.

The Food and Drug Administration ensures the safety and effectiveness of medical devices, including the device most often used by those affected by OSA – the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine, commonly known as CPAP – and a new device, the Inspire Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) System.

To learn more about sleep apnea, click HERE.

Morning sun the new weight loss option???
Posted by on April 16, 2014 - 8:12am
A surprising new strategy for managing your weight? Bright morning light!!  A new Northwestern Medicine® study reports the timing, intensity and duration of your light exposure during the day is linked to your weight -- the first time this has been shown.

People who had most of their daily exposure to even moderately bright light in the morning had a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) than those who had most of their light exposure later in the day, the study found.   “The earlier this light exposure occurred during the day, the lower individuals’ body mass index,” said co-lead author Kathryn Reid, research associate professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “The later the hour of moderately bright light exposure, the higher a person’s BMI.”

The influence of morning light exposure on body weight was independent of an individual’s physical activity level, caloric intake, sleep timing, age or season. It accounted for about 20 percent of a person’s BMI.

“Light is the most potent agent to synchronize your internal body clock that regulates circadian rhythms, which in turn also regulate energy balance,” said study senior author Phyllis C. Zee, M.D. “The message is that you should get more bright light between 8 a.m. and noon.” About 20 to 30 minutes of morning light is enough to affect BMI.

Zee is the Benjamin and Virginia T. Boshes Professor of Neurology and director of the Northwestern Medicine Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Research Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She also is a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

“If a person doesn’t get sufficient light at the appropriate time of day, it could de-synchronize your internal body clock, which is known to alter metabolism and can lead to weight gain,” Zee said. The exact mechanism of how light affects body fat requires further research, she noted.

The study was published April 2 in the journal PLOS ONE. Giovanni Santostasi, a research fellow in neurology at Feinberg, also is a co-lead author.

What’s the Magic Number for Low BMI?

Many people do not get enough natural light in the morning, Zee said, because the American lifestyle is predominantly indoors. We also work in poorly lit environments, usually about 200 to 300 lux. In the study, 500 lux was “the magic number” or minimum threshold for having a lower BMI. Even on a cloudy day, outdoor light is more than 1,000 lux of brightness. It is difficult to achieve this light level with usual indoor lighting, the scientists noted.

Light May Be Next Frontier for Weight Loss  

“Light is a modifiable factor with the potential to be used in weight management programs,” Reid said. “Just like people are trying to get more sleep to help them lose weight, perhaps manipulating light is another way to lose weight.”

The study included 54 participants (26 males, 28 females), an average age of 30. They wore a wrist actigraphy monitor that measured their light exposure and sleep parameters for seven days in normal-living conditions. Their caloric intake was determined from seven days of food logs.

Source:  Northwestern News Service, author Marla Paul

Sleeping and Memories
Posted by on April 4, 2013 - 11:48am

Recently, I've been having very detailed dreams related to work that include problem solving  (unfortunately, they are not just fun fantasies!).  I've actually wondered if these dreams are some sort of mechanism that comes with aging.   Lo and behold, today I ran across a NIH article, How Snoozing Strengthens Memories  (through dreams) that may shed some light on this phenomena.  Here is part of the article:

When you learn something new, the best way to remember it is to sleep on it. That’s because sleeping helps strengthen memories you’ve formed throughout the day. It also helps to link new memories to earlier ones. You might even come up with creative new ideas while you slumber.

What happens to memories in your brain while you sleep? And how does lack of sleep affect your ability to learn and remember? NIH-funded scientists have been gathering clues about the complex relationship between sleep and memory. Their findings might eventually lead to new approaches to help students learn or help older people hold onto memories as they age.

“We’ve learned that sleep before learning helps prepare your brain for initial formation of memories,” says Dr. Matthew Walker, a sleep scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “And then, sleep after learning is essential to help save and cement that new information into the architecture of the brain, meaning that you’re less likely to forget it.”

To read more, visit:    http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/issue/Apr2013/Feature2

Night Owls at Risk for Weight Gain
Posted by on May 21, 2011 - 8:57am

Staying up late every night and sleeping in is a habit that could put you at risk for gaining weight. People who go to bed late and sleep late eat more calories in the evening, more fast food, fewer fruits and vegetables and weigh more than people who go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.

Late sleepers consumed 248 more calories a day, twice as much fast food and half as many fruits and vegetables as those with earlier sleep times, according to the study. They also drank more full-calorie sodas. The late sleepers consumed the extra calories during dinner and later in the evening when everyone else was asleep. They also had a higher body mass index, a measure of body weight, than normal sleepers.

The study is one of the first in the United States to explore the relationship between the circadian timing of sleeping and waking, dietary behavior and body mass index. The study was published online in the journal Obesity and is expected to appear in a late summer print issue.

“The extra daily calories can mean a significant amount of weight gain – two pounds per month – if they are not balanced by more physical activity,” said co-lead author Kelly Glazer Baron, a health psychologist and a neurology instructor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“We don’t know if late sleepers consume the extra calories because they prefer more high-calorie foods or because there are less healthful options at night,” said co-lead author Kathryn Reid, research assistant professor in neurology at the Feinberg School.

The study shows not only are the number of calories you eat important, but also when you eat them -- and that’s linked to when you sleep and when you wake up, noted senior author Phyllis Zee, M.D., professor of neurology and director of the Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Research Program at Feinberg and medical director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Feinberg and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

“Human circadian rhythms in sleep and metabolism are synchronized to the daily rotation of the earth, so that when the sun goes down you are supposed to be sleeping, not eating,” Zee said. “When sleep and eating are not aligned with the body’s internal clock, it can lead to changes in appetite and metabolism, which could lead to weight gain.”

The research findings could be relevant to people who are not very successful in losing weight, Zee said. “The study suggests regulating the timing of eating and sleep could improve the effectiveness of weight management programs,“ she said.

The findings also have relevance for night-shift workers, who eat at the wrong time of day related to their bodies’ circadian rhythms. “It’s midnight, but they’re eating lunch,” Zee said. “Their risk for obesity as well as cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and gastrointestinal disorders is higher.”

The study included 51 people (23 late sleepers and 28 normal sleepers) who were an average age of 30. Late sleepers went to sleep at an average time of 3:45 a.m., awoke by 10:45 a.m., ate breakfast at noon, lunch at 2:30 p.m., dinner at 8:15 p.m. and a final meal at 10 p.m. Normal sleepers on average were up by 8 a.m., ate breakfast by 9 a.m., lunch at 1 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m., a last snack at 8:30 p.m. and were asleep by 12:30 a.m.

Participants in the study recorded their eating and sleep in logs and wore a wrist actigraph, which monitors sleep and activity cycles, for at least seven days.

Late sleepers function in society by finding jobs where they can make their own hours, Baron noted, such as academics or consultants. “They find niches where they can live this lifestyle, or they just get by with less sleep,” she said.

Northwestern researchers are planning a series of studies to test the findings in a larger community and to understand the biological mechanisms that link the relationship between circadian rhythms, sleep timing and metabolism.
by Marla Paul, health sciences editor, Feinberg School of Medicine. Contact her at marla-paul@northwestern.edu

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Study Shows Gender Difference in Sleep Interruptions
Posted by on December 14, 2010 - 2:16pm
Working mothers are two-and-a-half times as likely as working fathers to interrupt their sleep to take care of others.

That is the finding of a University of Michigan study providing the first known nationally representative data documenting substantial gender differences in getting up at night, mainly with babies and small children. And women are not only more likely to get up at night to care for others, their sleep interruptions last longer—an average of 44 minutes for women, compared to about 30 minutes for men.

"Interrupted sleep is a burden borne disproportionately by women," said sociologist Sarah Burgard, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "And this burden may not only affect the health and well-being of women, but also contribute to continuing gender inequality in earnings and career advancement."

For the study, Burgard analyzed time-diary data from approximately 20,000 working parents from 2003 to 2007, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Time Use Survey.  The gender gap in sleep interruptions was greatest during the prime childbearing and child-rearing years of the twenties and thirties, she found.

Among dual-career couples with a child under the age of one, 32 percent of women reported sleep interruptions to take care of the baby, compared with just 11 percent of men. The proportion reporting interrupted sleep declined with the age of the child, with 10 percent of working mothers and 2 percent of working fathers with children ages 1 to 2 reporting sleep interruptions, and just 3 percent of working mothers and 1 percent of working fathers with children ages 3 to 5.

"What is really surprising," Burgard said, "is that gender differences in night-time caregiving remain even after adjusting for the employment status, income and education levels of each parent. Among parents of infants who are the sole breadwinner in a couple, for example, 28 percent of women who are the sole breadwinner report getting up at night to take care of their children, compared to just 4 percent of men who are the only earner in the couple."

In related research, Burgard and colleagues found that women get slightly more sleep compared to men. But getting about 15 minutes more total sleep a day may or may not compensate for the greater sleep interruptions women face.

"Women face greater fragmentation and lower quality of sleep at a crucial stage in their careers," Burgard said. "The prime childbearing years are also the time when earnings trajectories are being established, and career advancement opportunities could well be foregone if women reduce their paid work time or see their workplace performance affected because of exhaustion. As a result, sleep interruption may represent an under-recognized 'motherhood penalty' that influences life chances and well-being."

The findings also have implications for public health interventions to improve sleep. "Generally, these interventions target individual behaviors, such as the use of alcohol, caffeine or tobacco," said Burgard. "Or they focus on nightly routines that help people to relax and fall asleep or stay asleep more successfully.

"But for parents of young children, the best approach might be discussions and negotiations about whose turn it is to get up with the baby tonight."The study, forthcoming in the peer-reviewed journal Social Forces, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Aging, and the Sloan Foundation.

Source:  University of Michigan News Service

Aerobic Exercise Relieves Insomnia
Posted by on September 20, 2010 - 3:47pm

The millions of middle-aged and older adults who suffer from insomnia have a new drug-free prescription for a more restful night’s sleep. Regular aerobic exercise improves the quality of sleep, mood and vitality, according to a small but significant new study from Northwestern Medicine and the Feinberg School of Medicine.  Insomnia is more prevalent in women.

The study is the first to examine the effect of aerobic exercise on middle-aged and older adults with a diagnosis of insomnia. About 50 percent of people in these age groups complain of chronic insomnia symptoms.  The aerobic exercise trial resulted in the most dramatic improvement in patients’ reported quality of sleep, including sleep duration, compared to any other non-pharmacological intervention.

“This is relevant to a huge portion of the population,” said Phyllis Zee, M.D., director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Northwestern Medicine and senior author of a paper to be published in the October issue of Sleep Medicine. The lead author is Kathryn Reid, research assistant professor at Feinberg.

“Insomnia increases with age,” Zee said. “Around middle age, sleep begins to change dramatically. It is essential that we identify behavioral ways to improve sleep. Now we have promising results showing aerobic exercise is a simple strategy to help people sleep better and feel more vigorous.”   The drug-free strategy also is desirable, because it eliminates the potential of a sleeping medication interacting with other drugs a person may be taking, Reid said.

Sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle, like nutrition and exercise, noted Zee, a professor of neurology, neurobiology, and physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

“Sleep is a barometer of health, like someone’s temperature. It should be the fifth vital sign. If a person says he or she isn’t sleeping well, we know they are more likely to be in poor health with problems managing their hypertension or diabetes," notes Zee.

The study included 23 sedentary adults, primarily women, 55 and older who had difficulty falling sleep and/or staying asleep and impaired daytime functioning. Women have the highest prevalence of insomnia. After a conditioning period, the aerobic physical activity group exercised for two 20-minute sessions four times per week or one 30-to-40-minute session four times per week, both for 16 weeks. Participants worked at 75 percent of their maximum heart rate on at least two activities including walking or using a stationary bicycle or treadmill.

Participants in the non-physical activity group participated in recreational or educational activities, such as a cooking class or a museum lecture, which met for about 45 minutes three to five times per week for 16 weeks. Both groups received education about good sleep hygiene, which includes sleeping in a cool, dark and quiet room, going to bed the same time every night and not staying in bed too long, if you can’t fall asleep.

Exercise improved the participants’ self-reported sleep quality, elevating them from a diagnosis of poor sleeper to good sleeper. They also reported fewer depressive symptoms, more vitality and less daytime sleepiness. “Better sleep gave them pep, that magical ingredient that makes you want to get up and get out into the world to do things,” Reid said.

The participants’ scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index dropped an average of 4.8 points. (A higher score indicates worse sleep.) In a prior study using t’ai chi as a sleep intervention, for example, participants’ average scores dropped 1.8 points.

“Exercise is good for metabolism, weight management and cardiovascular health and now it’s good for sleep,” Zee said.

The research was funded by the National Institute on Aging.

Source:  Marla Paul - health sciences editor at the NU Feinberg School of Medicine

Circadian Rhythm and Breast Cancer
Posted by on August 16, 2010 - 10:38am

All living organisms have a circadian clock, sometimes called a biological clock, that is an important part of maintaining optimal health.   The circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological, or behavioral processes of living things.   Although  circadian rhythms originate from within our bodies, they are synchronized to the environment by external cues, including the day-night cycle caused by the Earth's rotation.  Researchers are looking more closely at the role circadian rhythms play in the development of diseases such as breast cancer and also how factors such as hormones affect this biological clock.

Carla Finkielstein, a molecular biologist at Virgina Tech, has launched a research project to study how changes in circadian rhythms may contribute to the development of breast cancer in women.   According to Finkielstein, "There are a number of epidemiological studies that show women working night shifts have a higher incidence of breast cancer."  The question she asks is:   Can working odd hours actually alter a women's body chemistry--turning healthy cells into cancer cells?

With support from the National Science Foundation, she is using frog embryos to help figure out on a molecular basis the physiological changes in women who work night shifts.   She says studies show that night workers have abnormal levels of specific protein in their cells, which act by turning on and off genes that regulate how cells grow and divide.  Proper timing of cell division is a major factor contributing to the regulation of normal cell growth and is a fundamental process in the development of most cancers.  She explains," Our research explores ways in which the loss of circadian function impairs the death of cells in the cell cycle and leads to the accumulation of damaged, or cancerous, cells."

Where is this leading us, what is the clinical application?   "If we were to generate a panel of markers that we can follow regularly for women who works night shifts, it would enable us to record changes in circadian-controlled genes and thus predict whether a person is at risk of developing breast cancer, " Finkielstein said.   "If we see abnormal changes, all we may need to do is to alter this person's work schedule."

This study reinforces the important role circadian rhythm plays in sex and gender-based research.  In another example,  researchers at Northwestern University who are working in the lab of Dr. Fred Turek have determined that sex differences in hormone status in female mice are critical to better understanding stress or sleep deprivation.  There is growing evidence that circadian rhythm may play a part in other health issues like cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Women and Sleep
Posted by on August 12, 2010 - 2:46pm

The most recent statistics on the women who participate in our Illinois Women’s Health Registry, indicate that sleep is a significant issue in their lives.  Among the most current women who are enrolled in our registry, 11% report difficulties getting to sleep, 12% have a hard time staying asleep, 15% wake up feeling fatigued, 13% report they are getting too little sleep for what they need, and 8% wake too early and cannot get back to sleep.

Our limited knowledge in sex differences is due to the fact that women are underrepresented in studies of sleep and its disorders.  The National Sleep Disorders Research Plan, released in 2004 by the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research reported that 75% of sleep research has been conducted in men.   While more recent sleep studies have included women, the small sample sizes limit sex comparisons.  However, there is a growing body of evidence that sex hormones influence sleep and circadian rhythms, and further neuroendocrine studies are needed.

To read more on women and sleep on the Institute for Women's Health Research, click here.

Dr. Roseanne Armitage- "Sex Differences, Sleep, and Depression"
Posted by on January 20, 2010 - 11:20am

We probably all have first hand knowledge of how a bad night's sleep can affect us the next day: we're irritable, in a bad mood, and it can be hard to concentrate. It may not be all that surprising then, that how we sleep can be a very big part of depressive disorders, an incredibly interesting topic covered by Dr. Roseanne Armitage in the most recent installment of the IWHR's Women's Health Research Monthly Forum.

Dr. Roseanne Armitage Photo:www.med.umich.edu

Dr. Roseanne Armitage

Dr. Armitage began her talk by discussing how men and women, even those who do not have depression, sleep in very different ways. Possibly because of the different numbers of hormone receptors  or the over 650 genes that are expressed differently in the brains of males and females, the types of sleep we have also differs. For example, before puberty, boys have more slow wave sleep (stage 3 and 4 sleep, the deep, restorative kind that makes you feel refreshed in the morning) than girls do. After puberty, this changes, and girls are the lucky receivers of more slow wave sleep. Most interestingly, while men have a very slow loss of the amount of slow wave sleep over their lifetimes, women's amount stays relatively level and then drops precipitously during the peri-menopausal years. This is one reason why menopausal women really notice the sudden change in their sleep patterns. In general, women are also more likely to suffer from insomnia and sleep fragmentation than men.

The depression that Dr. Armitage really focused on was untreated MDD (major depressive disorder). MDD is twice as likely to occur in women than in men. Social withdrawal and feelings of worthlessness and guilt are more common in females with depression than in males with depression, who tend to complain more of lack of goal-oriented behavior. Around 80% of people with MDD report sleep problems, and for many people, sleep disturbance is the first presenting symptom of MDD. In adults with MDD, there are increased arousals and episodes of wakefulness, increased stage 1 sleep (the very light sleep), decreased total sleep time, and decreased stage 3 and 4 sleep.

Depression further exacerbates the sex differences in sleep between men and women when faced with a serious change to their normal sleep patterns (such as being asked to stay up for 40 hours consecutively), women with MDD overresponded, staying in slow wave sleep for too long, while men with MDD underresponded.  Sleep in healthy adults also shows a high level of coherence, or a very close association in the activity patterns of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Women with MDD, however, have a lower coherence during their sleep than other healthy females, healthy males, AND males with MDD.

Dr. Armitage's work also demonstrates the ability to tie sleep disturbances to the likelihood of depression in very young girls. She finds that coherence scores can be a very good predictor of future depressive disorder; girls who were at high-risk for depression because their mothers were depressed demontrate lower coherence in their sleep...even before they have any sign or symptom of depression. Young girls in this high-risk group also had very disorganized sleep-activity patterns, even as disorganized as same aged girls who already suffered from depression. Shockingly, even babies (2 to 30 weeks) of depressed mothers take longer to fall asleep, have decreased total sleep time and sleep efficiency, and spend less time in bright light (known to produce necessary vitamins) than babies of non-depressed mothers.

Our thanks to Dr. Roseanne Armitage for such an eye-opening talk! We encourage you to look at some of Dr. Armitage's published work on the topic: