sufficient sleep Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Eating More of THIS Food May Lower Heart Disease Risk, New Study Suggests

AHA Publisher — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 07:18:47 +0000

Patrick Tims via NaturalHealth365 – There are plenty of ways to reduce your risk of heart disease, including diet and exercise. In fact, surprising to many people, eating fat-rich avocados can actually help to reduce the risk of heart disease. Avocados taste amazing and clearly benefit the human body, as detailed below. A recent study shows people who consume two or more servings of avocados per week have a 16% to 22% less chance of developing heart disease. The details of this study are quite interesting. Higher Intake of Avocados Associated With Significantly Lower Risk of Cardiovascular Disease The study referenced above, conducted by Pacheco et al., used data from two potential cohort studies dating back to the late 1980s up until 2016. The participants reported information about their food intake every two years. The cohort participants also answered questions about medical history, lifestyle, and overall health. The study subjects were asked how frequently they consumed specific foods, focusing on avocados, olive oil, butter, and plant oil. Once lifestyle and diet factors were adjusted for, researchers determined that those who ate more avocados were less likely to develop heart disease and stroke. Interestingly, the study revealed that consuming half a serving of avocados each day in place of the same amount of margarine was enough to reduce the risk of heart disease by the 16% mentioned above. However, it must be noted that the study had limitations of note. For example, some question whether self-reported food intake is accurate as people tend to feel guilty about eating unhealthy food. Heart Disease Remains Leading Cause of Mortality Worldwide The study’s findings, as detailed above, are meaningful as heart disease is the leading cause of mortality across the globe. Cardiovascular disease also causes atherosclerotic lesions to form, causing the arteries to narrow, leading to a thrombus formation followed by a clinical event. All in all, nearly 18 million people die each year due to cardiovascular diseases. As the massive baby boomer age cohort moves through its golden years, heart disease and cancer will be the center of the medical industry’s attention. The Role of Diet and Lifestyle in Heart Health Sufficient sleep, exercise, and food consumption all play a role in preventing heart disease. However, the average person is understandably unaware of the most important foods to eat to improve their heart health. For example, avocados are loaded with monounsaturated fatty acids, yet they are also rich in polyphenols 5 and antioxidants. Avocados have the ability to decrease LDL-C (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol), proving helpful in preventing cardiovascular disease. In case you need more reasons to chow down on avocados, here is another one. Previous epidemiological studies have found that the regular consumption of avocados reduces cholesterol and triglycerides while simultaneously hiking serum HDL-C (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) concentrations. Science has spoken and shown that avocados deserve a spot on your plate. Best of all, including them in your diet is not difficult. Make a delicious avocado toast, or add sliced avocados to your salad to give it a nutritional boost with heart-protective benefits. Sources for this article include: NaturalHealthResearch.org Paho.org To read the original article click here.

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6 Reasons You’re Not Getting Good Sleep & Why It’s Dire

AHA Publisher — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 07:00:07 +0000

Dr. Don Colbert – It’s estimated that 50 to 70 million Americans have problems with getting good sleep. Are you one of them? Or, are you getting enough sleep each night; at least 7 hours, with much of it being deep sleep? If not, here’s what you need to know. A new study was recently published about the effects of insufficient sleep and rapid eye movement (REM). Plus, we have 6 reasons you may not be getting enough, and what you can do about it. Not Getting Good Sleep? It May Be a Dire Situation It’s no secret that lack of sleep has negative effects on your body. If you’re not getting good sleep each night, at least 7 hours, you likely also get less REM. This can increase cortisol levels, depressed moods, and irritability while decreasing reaction times, focus, and overall wellness. But, do these effects have dire consequences? New Study Links REM and Mortality A new study published in July in JAMA found an association with less REM percentage and an increased risk for death in middle-aged and older adults (1). Investigators at the University of California, San Diego, studied insufficient REM percentage and its consequences. They found that each 5% reduction of REM over a 12-year period was associated with a 13% increase in mortality rate. The primary study included 2675 men (mean age, 76.3 years), and followed them for approximately 12 years. A cohort study included 1386 individuals (54.3% men, mean age 51.5 years), with a follow-up of approximately 21 years. The investigators followed the sleep scores and mortality throughout the study. Self-report sleep measures were collected using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire. This study did not show cause and effect but did establish the association of low REM percentage and increased mortality. Causes of Death in the Study The causes of death in the study were categorized as cardiovascular, cancer, or other. Approximately half (53%) of the participants in the primary study died during follow-up. The highest percentage of deaths was recorded among those in the lowest REM sleep percentage. After analysis adjustments, it was determined that there was a 13% higher mortality rate for every 5% reduction in REM sleep among participants. These findings were similar and significant for cardiovascular and “other causes of death” but not cancer-related death. Findings were similar in the cohort study. REM Percentage The percentage of REM was calculated throughout the study using polysomnography and evaluation with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. A “healthy” percentage of REM for most adults is approximately 20-25% (2). The mean percentage of REM sleep in the study was 19.2%. Within all causes of death, the mortality rate was greater for those participants who had <15% REM sleep per night than those with 15% or more. Those with <15% REM were generally older and also had higher rates of antidepressant use, cardiac events and conditions, and engaged in less physical activity. Dire Consequences Unfortunately, the answer is “yes,” the consequences of insufficient sleep and REM percentage may be dire. While this study shows increased mortality, the investigators are not sure exactly what connects it to REM. They do know insufficient REM percentage and sleep negatively affect the cardiovascular system, metabolism, brain, and overall quality of life. How can you get more REM and avoid the effects? 6 Reasons You’re Not Getting Good Sleep and REM 1. Stress Stress affects individuals in many different ways. It can affect digestion, emotional stability, the cardiovascular system, brain function, and for many, sleep quality (3). And there’s more. Recent studies have shown it may be associated with lower brain volume and memory issues in mid-life (5). If you’re going to bed with lots on your mind and feel that stress is negatively affecting your sleep, it’s important to take stress relief-steps. What to do: Do your best to get some stress relief before bed. Try exercising earlier in the day or getting outside with a walk after dinner. Take time to write in a journal before bed, prepare for your next day, and pray. For more tips to reduce stress and cortisol, see this post. 2. Artificial Light & Circadian Rhythms Many of us live in an artificial light world. We’re inside too much of the day, especially in the winter. Our circadian rhythms depend on the natural cycle of light in order to promote good sleep cycles. If we’re inside all day without much exposure to natural sunlight, this rhythm can suffer. If we experience excessive nighttime exposure to artificial light, our brains are signals that it is still daytime, and our rhythms suffer. A combination of lack of daylight, and too much artificial evening light, can lead to poorer sleep patterns. What to do: Make every effort to get out into natural sunlight in the morning, and throughout the day. Turn lights down and power screens off an hour before bedtime. 3. Busy Schedules and Late Nights The more we do, the less we likely sleep. And unfortunately, many families have very busy schedules. For those with kids and teens, scheduled activities can reach far into the evening, disrupting dinner and downtime. In fact, many kids and teens get inadequate sleep. What’s more, American adults often reach for their computers and put in work hours during the evening. Or, they spend time on screens, delaying sleep. What to do: If your schedule or your family’s schedule is negatively affecting sleep, it’s time to cut down on activities or choose those that can be finished early in the evening. Keep kids and teens at a consistent bedtime. Do your best to prioritize the whole family’s sleep schedule. 4. Too Much Caffeine If you’re not getting good sleep and feel fatigued during the day, you may start increasing your caffeine intake to perk up. This is often a band-aid used by sleepy adults, but it just makes the issue of insufficient sleep worse. In fact, if you feel you “need” caffeine after the morning hours to function well, it’s a strong indicator that you simply need more sleep. One study from Australia found that poor sleepers drank ~70-295 mg caffeine per day, while those who self-reported as “good sleepers” only drank ~60-190 gm per day. This study only included 80 people, but may indicate that >200 mg caffeine was associated with poorer sleep in this group (6). What to do: If caffeine is affecting your sleep, trying capping your caffeine intake at 200 mg or less per day, or 12 ounces strong coffee. Avoid caffeine after 2 pm. 5. Unhealthy Weight If you are overweight, it may negatively affect your sleep. Unfortunately, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common sleep disorder, affects 17% of the total population and 40–70% of the obese population (7, 8). Studies have found that sleep apnea is associated with metabolic diseases and weight gain, and being overweight is associated with sleep apnea (9,10). Sleep apnea may affect glycemic control, insulin, and leptin levels (11). This is a problematic cycle for getting good sleep. What to do: If you are overweight or obese, consider reducing carbohydrates and getting into the Keto Zone. A ketogenic diet is associated with improved weight and fat percentage (11, 12). It also supports healthy blood sugars (13, 14). If you need help, try the FREE Keto Zone 21-Day-Challenge and check out the Keto Zone Starter Kit including Dr. Colbert’s Keto Zone Diet Book. 6. Too Hot to Sleep If your environment is too warm at night, you may have trouble sleeping. In fact, many adults report waking up due to feeling overly warm. It may be due to the environment, or your own hormones. If you are experiencing hot flashes or warming at night, try these tips for natural hot flash relief. What to do: Ensure that your room is cool when you go to be by reducing any heat, using a fan, open window or air conditioning, and removing excess covers. If you are suffering from hot flashes, take steps listed in this post to find relief. Bottom Line Getting good sleep is important. And, an insufficient percentage of REM each night can have serious consequences. Thankfully, there are many steps we can all take to improve our hours of sleep and REM percentage. Take a look at your own lifestyle. What can you do to ensure you’re getting good sleep? To read the original article click here. For more articles by Dr. Colbert click here.

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Sleep, Death and the Gut?

AHA Publisher — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 07:00:21 +0000

Harvard Medical School via Newswise – The first signs of insufficient sleep are universally familiar. There’s tiredness and fatigue, difficulty concentrating, perhaps irritability or even tired giggles. Far fewer people have experienced the effects of prolonged sleep deprivation, including disorientation, paranoia and hallucinations. Total, prolonged sleep deprivation, however, can be fatal. While it has been reported in humans only anecdotally, a widely cited study in rats conducted by Chicago-based researchers in 1983 showed that a total lack of sleep inevitably leads to death. Yet, despite decades of study, a central question has remained unsolved: why do animals die when they don’t sleep? Now, Harvard Medical School neuroscientists have identified an unexpected, causal link between sleep deprivation and premature death. In a study on sleep-deprived fruit flies, researchers found that death is always preceded by the accumulation of molecules known as reactive oxidative species (ROS) in the gut. When fruit flies were given antioxidant compounds that neutralize and clear ROS from the gut, sleep-deprived flies remained active and had normal lifespans. Additional experiments in mice confirmed that ROS accumulate in the gut when sleep is insufficient. The findings, published in Cell on June 4, suggest the possibility that animals can indeed survive without sleep under certain circumstances. The results open new avenues of study to understand the full consequences of insufficient sleep and may someday inform the design of approaches to counteract its detrimental effects in humans, the authors said. “We took an unbiased approach and searched throughout the body for indicators of damage from sleep deprivation. We were surprised to find it was the gut that plays a key role in causing death,” said senior study author Dragana Rogulja, assistant professor of neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS. “Even more surprising, we found that premature death could be prevented. Each morning, we would all gather around to look at the flies, with disbelief to be honest. What we saw is that every time we could neutralize ROS in the gut, we could rescue the flies,” Rogulja said. Scientists have long studied sleep, a phenomenon that appears to be fundamental for life, yet one that in many ways remains mysterious. Almost every known animal sleeps or exhibits some form of sleeplike behavior. Without enough of it, serious consequences ensue. In humans, chronic insufficient sleep is associated with heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, obesity, depression and many other conditions. Previous research has shown that prolonged, total sleep restriction can lead to premature death in animal models. In attempts to answer just how sleep deprivation culminates in death, most research efforts have focused on the brain, where sleep originates, but none have yielded conclusive results. Gut Accumulation Spearheaded by study co-first authors Alexandra Vaccaro and Yosef Kaplan Dor, both research fellows in neurobiology at HMS, the team carried out a series of experiments in fruit flies, which share many sleep-regulating genes with humans, to search for signs of damage caused by sleep deprivation throughout the body. To monitor sleep, the researchers used infrared beams to constantly track the movement of flies housed in individual tubes. They found that flies can sleep through physical shaking, so the team turned to more sophisticated methods. They genetically manipulated fruit flies to express a heat-sensitive protein in specific neurons, the activity of which are known to suppress sleep. When flies were housed at 29 degrees C (84 degrees F), the protein induced neurons to remain constantly active, thus preventing the flies from sleeping. After 10 days of temperature-induced sleep deprivation, mortality spiked among the fruit flies and all died by around day 20. Control flies that had normal sleep lived up to approximately 40 days in the same environmental conditions. Because mortality increased around day 10, the researchers looked for markers of cell damage on that and preceding days. Most tissues, including in the brain, were indistinguishable between sleep-deprived and non-deprived flies, with one notable exception. The guts of sleep-deprived flies had a dramatic buildup of ROS—highly reactive, oxygen-containing molecules that in large amounts can damage DNA and other components within cells, leading to cell death. The accumulation of ROS peaked around day 10 of sleep deprivation, and when deprivation was stopped, ROS levels decreased. Additional experiments confirmed that ROS builds up in the gut of only those animals that experienced sustained sleep loss, and that the gut is indeed the main source of this apparently lethal ROS. “We found that sleep-deprived flies were dying at the same pace, every time, and when we looked at markers of cell damage and death, the one tissue that really stood out was the gut,” Vaccaro said. “I remember when we did the first experiment, you could immediately tell under the microscope that there was a striking difference. That almost never happens in lab research.” The team also examined whether ROS accumulation occurs in other species by using gentle, continuous mechanical stimulation to keep mice awake for up to five days. Compared to control animals, sleep-deprived mice had elevated ROS levels in the small and large intestines but not in other organs, a finding consistent with the observations in flies. Death Rescue To find out if ROS in the gut play a causal role in sleep deprivation-induced death, the researchers set out to determine whether preventing ROS accumulation could prolong survival. They tested dozens of compounds with antioxidant properties known to neutralize ROS and identified 11 that, when given as a food supplement, allowed sleep-deprived flies to have a normal or near-normal lifespan. These compounds, such as melatonin, lipoic acid and NAD, were particularly effective at clearing ROS from the gut. Notably, supplementation did not extend the lifespan of non-deprived flies. The role of ROS removal in preventing death was further confirmed by experiments in which flies were genetically manipulated to overproduce antioxidant enzymes in their guts. These flies had normal to near-normal lifespans when sleep-deprived, which was not the case for control flies that overproduced antioxidant enzymes in the nervous system. The results demonstrate that ROS buildup in the gut plays a central role in causing premature death from sleep deprivation, the researchers said, but cautioned that many questions remain unanswered. “We still don’t know why sleep loss causes ROS accumulation in the gut, and why this is lethal,” said Kaplan Dor. “Sleep deprivation could directly affect the gut, but the trigger may also originate in the brain. Similarly, death could be due to damage in the gut or because high levels of ROS have systemic effects, or some combination of these.” Insufficient sleep is known to interfere with the body’s hunger signaling pathways, so the team also measured fruit fly food intake to analyze whether there were potential associations between feeding and death. They found that some sleep-deprived flies ate more throughout the day compared with non-deprived controls. However, restricting access to food had no effect on survival, suggesting that factors beyond food intake are involved. The researchers are now working to identify the biological pathways that lead to ROS accumulation in the gut and subsequent physiological disruptions. The team hopes that their work will inform the development of approaches or therapies to offset some of the negative consequences of sleep deprivation. One in three American adults gets less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and insufficient sleep is a normal part of life for many around the world. “So many of us are chronically sleep deprived. Even if we know staying up late every night is bad, we still do it,” Rogulja said. “We believe we’ve identified a central issue that, when eliminated, allows for survival without sleep, at least in fruit flies.” “We need to understand the biology of how sleep deprivation damages the body, so that we can find ways to prevent this harm,” she said. To read the original article click here.

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