Hot MedFax

I admit I'm compulsive . No, I'm not one of those sad sacks who pile rotten eggs and dirty dishes from 2013 in the sink, climbing over boxes and mountains of clothes to get from end of the living room to the other. But I have to finish an article the minute it's assigned and I will drive on the shoulder until I can squeeze into a line of unmoving cars.  I didn't say I was polite! Now a new study says that people who go to bed late may just be developing OCD.  Newswise.com reports that these late-night-lovers have less control over OCD symptoms. A late bedtime is associated with lower perceived control of obsessive thoughts, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York, the web site reports. Binghamton University Professor of Psychology Meredith E. Coles and former graduate student Jessica Schubert (now at University of Michigan Medical School) monitored 20 individuals diagnosed with OCD and 10 individuals endorsing subthr

I know it should come as no surprise.  But teens who text at night do not do as well in school as those who don't. A new study has shown that teens who text at night pay a price in both their sleep (okay, so we knew that) but also, wait for it, their academic performance, too. Now that's a little scary. The study is the first of its kind to link nighttime instant messaging habits of American teenagers to sleep health and school performance, according to newswise.com. “We need to be aware that teenagers are using electronic devices excessively and have a unique physiology,” says study author Xue Ming, professor of neuroscience and neurology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “They tend to go to sleep late and get up late. When we go against that natural rhythm, students become less efficient.”  Think about it.  I've been getting up before dawn (4:45 yesterday and 3:30 today, though the garbage men woke me anyway) to finish a project with a tight deadline

Getting less and less sleep ?  Congratulations.  You've evolved to a human. Humans get by on significantly less sleep than our closest animal relatives. The secret, according to a new study, is that our sleep is more efficient. Researchers from Duke University scoured the scientific literature and compiled a database of slumber patterns across hundreds of mammals including 21 species of primates -- from baboons and lemurs to orangutans, chimpanzees and people. They then used statistical techniques to account for each species' position in the primate family tree. They found that humans are exceptionally short sleepers -- getting by on an average of seven hours of sleep a night, whereas other primate species, such as southern pig-tailed macaques and gray mouse lemurs, need as many as 14 to 17 hours.  Now, I don't particularly care much about the sleep habits of southern pig-tailed macaques, I find it interesting that they make out better than us at night (

My husband drives me crazy with sleep issues. Our son (who does get sick a lot) gets sick because he doesn't sleep enough.  Sleep can heal your body of everything.  Oh, and before I forget, don't you dare wake him up unless the house is burning down (we won't mention the time the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night at the hotel we were staying in and he decided to go to the bathroom first). But that's another story. Now a new study has found that sleep interruptions are worse for our moods than overall sleep reduction, according to newswise.com. In other words, awakening several times throughout the night is more detrimental to people’s positive moods than getting the same shortened amount of sleep without interruption. Who hasn't been there?  You didn't get enough sleep and you're grumpy.  There's that.  But there's also the annoyance of being awakened or jerked from a sound sleep.  I no longer use an alarm clock for just th

I absolutely hate this.  My husband is right.  Not enough sleep can lead to colds. We've fought for years over this, mostly because our son seems to get sick every time he misses a couple of hours of sleep.  I've always felt that it was mostly myth, or just Larry's crazy view of just about everything (he also believes lack of exercise makes you sick and that tomatoes will stop prostate cancer in its tracks -- and meanwhile, never goes to the doctor). But anyway, now that Phillip's in high school, missing a day here and there is a serious thing.  No longer can he have the three-day stretches where he recovers from strep throat, or a cold.  (I admit, I'm a little scared, too.) But a new study has found that "short" sleepers are four times more likely to get a cold. Makes sense, I guess. People who sleep less than six hours a night are the ones most likely to have this happen to them. This is the first study to use objective sleep measures to conne

Finally.  My dream come true. You can lose weight by eating chocolate.  Well, OK, maybe not exactly.  But a new study has found that chocolate is a rich source of bioactive compounds, particularly a group of molecules called flavonoids, plant compounds associated with several positive health impacts, according to newswise.com. Most diet experts agree it's not what you eat but how much you eat, and in what combinations.  I've been a Weight Watchers member, off and on, since high school and what I've learned is that you need to balance what you eat -- some fruit, some vegetables, some lean protein, some carbohydrates (like sweet potato and brown rice).  You can even eat popcorn! But teasing out the possible effects of the compounds in your diet, and how it may interact with various diet interventions, is rarely studied. It could be that simply consuming chocolate in combination with dietary interventions has no effect, or it could make such diets even more effec

Great.  Our brains don't shut off even when we sleep. True, they're used when we're dreaming and also those awful times when we're just drifting off to sleep and jerk awake.  (That's called a hypnic jerk.  See?  You learned something today.) But I for one always thought that my brain rested at night so it could get ready for rousing my kid out of bed (actually, fighting is more like it), slicing fruit and pouring Cheerios for his breakfast, showering, making sure he's getting dressed, signing on to the computer to see what's going on at work, making sure he's getting dressed, making his lunch (easy -- he eats only Goldfish, go figure), warming up the car, making sure he's getting dressed, and finally, getting him in and driving to school, then to the grocery store, and on to work. It's amazing I have any brain left at all. And that doesn't count making sure my husband stops exercising long enough to take the garbage out. Ah, it'

Damn. Looks like my husband was right again.  A new study has found that getting kids to bed at the same time every night (read: early) is a very good thing. Researchers found that a good night’s sleep is linked to better performance in math and languages – subjects that are powerful predictors of later learning and academic success, according to newswise.com.  In findings published recently in the journal Sleep Medicine , the researchers reported that “sleep efficiency” is associated with higher academic performance in those key subjects. Sleep efficiency is a gauge of sleep quality that compares the amount of actual sleep time with the total time spent in bed. While other studies have pointed to links between sleep and general academic performance, these   scientists examined the impact of sleep quality on report-card grades in specific subjects. The upshot: with greater sleep efficiency, the children did better in math and languages – but don't go nuts about s

OK.  It's what a lot of men want, and some pretend to have.  We're talking higher levels of testosterone .  But now a new study is finding that obese men with this have poorer sleep quality. It's important because poor sleep quality has been linked to increased risk of diabetes and hypertension. Many obese men suffer from sleep apnea, another disorder that disrupts sleep patterns.  With this problem, you can stop breathing up to a hundred times of night -- and not even know it.  People who snore may also have this illness. The selection of the men in the study did not consider whether they had symptoms or a history of sleep apnea, according to newswise.com. However, the sleep study showed that 66 percent of the men did have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which was moderately severe in most cases. OSA can lead to an increased risk of heart disease, deadly accidents (the engineer on the Metro North train that veered out of control and killed four people this winter

I always slept with the book under my head before a test (never helped!).  But a new study has found that sleep after learning strengthens connections between brain cells and improves memory. Sleep helps consolidate and strengthen new memories, according to newswise.com. "Sleep after learning encourages the growth of the tiny protrusions from brain cells that connect to other brain cells and facilitate the passage of information across synapses, the junctions at which brain cells meet. Moreover, the activity of brain cells during deep sleep, or slow-wave sleep, after learning is critical for such growth," the Web site reports.  The study showed for the first time how learning and sleep cause physical changes in the motor cortex, a brain region responsible for voluntary movements. “We’ve known for a long time that sleep plays an important role in learning and memory. If you don’t sleep well you won’t learn well,” says senior investigator Wen-Biao Gan, PhD, pro

I came very close today to getting two dogs.  Me, who's never had a dog in her life!  But I met a rescue activist who found two adorable bichon frises roaming the streets of my town, collarless, chipless, and starving, so she picked them up and told me about them. I was a little nervous -- what do I know about dogs except that I've grown to love them?! -- and they'd really be good for my son, who has no siblings.  But I said yes, only to be called later in the day and told someone else who'd seen them first claimed them when she heard I wanted them, too (isn't that always the way?). There's still a chance this person may change her mind -- she took the dogs (who are brothers) for a test drive to see how they got along with her three other dogs this weekend and if they all don't get along. . . . But then I started reading about how pets really can disturb your slumber. According to newswise.com, while countless pet owners peacefully sleep with a warm

Remember how Mom always nagged you to get your sleep?  She may have been right. At least, if you're a fruit fly. A new study says that " lack of sleep in young fruit flies profoundly diminishes their ability to do one thing they do really, really well – make more flies," according to newswise.com. Research   links sleep disruption in newborn fruit flies with a critical adult behavior: courtship and mating. Scientists, who investigated  the link between sleep disruption and human neuropsychiatric diseases, used the fly – which is far more genetically pliant than mammals -- to ask two basic questions: Why do young animals sleep so much? And, what is the implication of altering those patterns? What is the consequence of sleep loss? Increased dopamine in young flies (who sleep a lot) not only causes sleep loss, but also affects their ability to court when they’re older. “The flies spend less time courting, and those that do usually don’t make it all the way to the

So our brains are working away even while we sleep?  That's the idea behind a new study that's found that " memory of specific odors (along with many other things) depends on the ability of the brain to learn, process and recall accurately and effectively during slow-wave sleep — a deep sleep characterized by slow brain waves." If more can be learned from better understanding of how the brain processes odors, researchers believe it could lead to novel therapies that target specific neurons in the brain, perhaps enhancing memory consolidation and memory accuracy, according to newswise.com. Researchers showed in experiments with rats that odor memory was strengthened when odors sensed the previous day were replayed during sleep, the Web site reports. Memories deepened more when odor reinforcement occurred during sleep than when rats were awake. When the memory of a specific odor learned when the rats were awake was replayed during slow-wave sleep, they achieved

You couldn't tell it by my skinny, scrawny kid but a new study is finding that TVs in bedrooms may cause kids to gain a pound a year, and contribute to -- or cause -- childhood obesity. According to newswise.com, the study has f ound that having a bedroom television was a significant predictor of adolescent weight gain. Makes sense, I suppose.  If the kid's in the house watching TV, he most likely isn't going to ditch it to run around or play ball.  At least, I wouldn't. Growing up, no kid I knew had a TV in his bedroom.  In fact, we had friends who never even had a TV in their house.  I'll never forget their joy when they got to see "The Wizard of Oz" at our house for the first time. But today seems like every kid has one.  And an XBox and an iPod and . . .you get the idea.   “This study suggests that removing bedroom TVs is an important step in our nation’s fight against child obesity. We found that adolescents with a TV in their bedroom gaine

Here's another reason teens need to get their sleep .  Those who are obese and don't get enough heighten their chances of heart attack, stroke and diabetes, according to a new study. Lack of sleep and obesity have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in adults and young children, newswise.com reports. The adolescents were fitted with a physical activity monitor, worn 24 hours a day for seven days, to measure typical patterns of physical activity and sleep. "One-third of the participants met the minimum recommendation of being physically active at least 60 minutes a day," the Web site notes. Most participants slept approximately seven hours each night, usually waking up at least once. Only five of the participants met the minimal recommended eight-and-a- half hours of sleep per night. Even after controlling for factors that may have an impact on cardiac and metabolic risk, like BMI and physical activity, low levels of s

Football may not really be your game (I probably sound unAmerican but mine's tennis) but a certain Midwestern college's football team found out last fall just how important  sleep  is after their coach decided to start helping them sleep better.  They also won the big game. The coach swears there's a connection.  The team is Northwestern and Pat Fitzgerald, the coach,  has placed an unusual emphasis on his players’ sleeping behavior as a way to improve their performance, according to The New York Times. In the past, he has changed the times of practices and instituted team naps, but since the beginning of August, in collaboration with the university’s school of engineering, Fitzgerald has had his team undergo a sleep assessment, Steven Braid reports. The idea was to assess the players’ sleep patterns and then suggest ways they can have more and sounder sleep. The players began wearing movement sensor armbands during training camp, except when they are practicing or in the w

Let's talk about sleep.  Not the sweet angel and clouds sleep.  But the down and dirty.  Like, when you can't.  We've all been there.  Some, more than others. I know when I'm anxious and upset about something, I'm still watching TV at 4 a.m.  I've always been a poor sleeper, I suspect, since my college experiences in the late '60s when there was so much unrest on campuses across America and people stayed up all night, blasting stereos and shouting and demonstrating.  Ever since then I've had to have complete quiet (I've convinced my wife to let me use a sound machine when we travel and at home I have the AC on, even in the winter, for its soft insistent hum). But for many, getting to sleep is a frustrating, upsetting process that can sometimes lead to devastating outcomes. More on that later. Sleep has turned into a multi-million-dollar industry these days. Bed makers have gotten people to shell out thousands of dollars for mattresses that change fro

Yet another reason to get your sleep.  Now, too few hours may lead to Alzheimer's.  A new Johns Hopkins study has found shorter sleep duration and poorer sleep quality is linked to a biomarker for Alzheimer's. According to newswise.com, "Poor sleep quality may impact Alzheimer’s disease onset and progression." "Our study found that among older adults, reports of shorter sleep duration and poorer sleep quality were associated with higher levels of (a protein) measured by PET scans of the brain,” newswise.com quotes Adam Spira, PhD, lead author of the study and an assistant professor with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Mental Health. “These results could have significant public health implications as Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, and approximately half of older adults have insomnia symptoms.” In the study , participants reported sleep that ranged from more than seven hours to no more than five hours. Those who slept the least

There's energy drinks to keep us up.  What about a carbonated, berry-flavored beverage to help us relax , and sleep? We all know about Ambien and lavender tea and the herbal tea I once took to try to get to sleep -- and it got my heart racing so hard I thought I was having a heart attack.  (Can't think of the name -- maybe I'm blanking out of fear!). Anyway, The Wall Street Journal reports today, "With names like Neuro Bliss, Marley's Mellow Mood (as in Bob), and Just Chill, the products aren't marketed as medicine, but as a way to relax without turning to more traditional, if sometimes imperfect, measures like taking prescription drugs or having a few beers." Sarah Nassauer interviewed Paul Nadel, president of Neuro Drinks, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company that sells a line of just such drinks, who told her consumers are "warming up to drinks that could fill the chasm between taking medication for anxiety or sleep problems and doing nothing

Have you ever felt this way?  Oh, another 10 minutes of sleep would feel so good, in the morning, but you have to exercise before work.  Sleep?  Exercise?  Which one is better?  “Exercise, sleep and nutrition form the triangle of health, and all are related,” The New York Times' Gretchen Reynolds quotes Dr. Phyllis Zee, a professor of neurology and director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Northwestern University in Chicago. Reynolds notes that  research from Zee's laboratory shows that at least seven hours of sleep results in better and more prolonged exercise sessions later that day, while "fewer hours of sleep frequently lead to reduced motivation to exercise."  But “exercise can improve the quality of sleep,” she told Reynolds, adding that “deep sleep is more restorative and effective for memory, performance and physical health.” Reynolds reports that robbing yourself of exercise or sleep is counterproductive to good health, according to Kelly Glazer Baro