Sleep Medicine News

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea may be at greater risk for atrial fibrillation, according to findings recently presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference.

In individuals with metabolic syndrome, short sleep duration during a 1-night sleep lab was associated with increased risk of mortality vs. those with longer sleep duration, according to recent findings.

If left untreated, sleep disturbances are known to have various long-term health consequences. Severe insomnia, one of the more common sleep disturbances, increases the risk for heart disease, hypertension, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure and diabetes. For this reason, it is essential that primary care physicians monitor and treats sleep disturbances in their patients.

Patients who were middle-aged and taking benzodiazepines or nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics for 2 weeks or less were at increased risk for hip fracture, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis recently published in PLoS One.

Recent findings indicated sleep quality affected emotion regulation in individuals with anxiety or depression disorders.

Nocturia is a condition in which individuals wake up frequently during the night to urinate. Referred to as excessive nighttime urination, nocturia becomes more common as people get older. Nocturia occurs in individuals who wake up more than once a night to urinate, which can cause disruptions to a normal sleep cycle. The condition is different from enuresis — better known as bed-wetting — in which an individual’s bladder empties while still asleep.

Children with inconsistent bedtimes and poor emotional self-regulation at age 3 years may have a higher risk for obesity at age 11 years compared with children with consistent bedtimes and better emotional self-regulation.

Communities should implement start times of 8:30 a.m. or later for middle school and high schools to optimize daytime alertness, reduce tardiness and support peak academic performance, according to a position paper by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, published in Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

Although narcolepsy typically begins in children and adolescents, they are most likely to experience a delay in diagnosis, suggesting that narcolepsy awareness efforts should be aimed at parents, pediatric clinical providers, schools and children themselves, according to recent findings.

Patients with insomnia symptoms have an increased risk for future cardio-cerebral vascular events, including MI and stroke, according to findings published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.