Sleep News and Research

Latest Sleep News and Research

New approach to Alzheimer’s care

Protocols and practices at an Arizona nursing home that allows patients with Alzheimer’s disease freedom to eat and sleep when they want makes appears to make them happier and easier to care for, the New York Times reports. Beatitudes, a ministry of the Church of the Beatitude, has also done away with restraints. Each patient is cared for according to his/her individual needs.

3 Jan 2011

New guideline provides evidence-based recommendation for children undergoing tonsillectomy

A multidisciplinary clinical practice guideline, "Tonsillectomy in Children" will be published in the January issue of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

3 Jan 2011

Tips to prevent a hangover

Dr. Andrew Yacht, director of the division of general medicine and vice chair of medicine for education at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City said, “Alcohol clearly causes hangovers, but why it causes hangovers isn’t very well understood…Part of the suspected cause is dehydration and an electrolyte and hormonal imbalance. Some of the symptoms may be caused by low blood sugar. Or, it may be that the direct toxic effects of alcohol are causing the symptoms.”

2 Jan 2011

General anaesthesia brings reversible coma and not sleep: Study

Anaesthesia has been one of the greatest gifts of science and use of general anaesthesia is a routine part of surgical operations at hospitals and medical facilities around the world. However precise biological mechanisms of the drugs’ effects on the brain are only now being analyzed. In a review article published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists have tried to analyze a range of disciplines, including neuroscience and sleep medicine to understand how anaesthesia actually works.

2 Jan 2011

Fungus may provide clue about human response to changes in circadian rhythm

Humans are not the only species ruled by a circadian rhythm. Even simple organisms like moulds are governed by an inner clock. Studying red bread mould may teach us how our own internal clock works. This is exactly what the Centre for Organelle Research at the University of Stavanger, Norway is doing.

30 Dec 2010

Sleep-deprived physicians not to perform elective surgeries without patient's consent

While regulations have been put in place to restrict the work hours of doctors in training, no such regulations exist for fully trained physicians. An editorial in this week's New England Journal of Medicine argues that sleep-deprived physicians should not be permitted to proceed with an elective surgery without a patient's informed, written consent.

30 Dec 2010

Loyola University offers tips to avoid the misery of New Year's hangover

Exercise and B vitamins can help cure a hangover, but coffee won't help. These are among the tips that Loyola University Health System family physician Dr. Aaron Michelfelder offers to avoid the misery of a New Year's hangover.

30 Dec 2010

General anesthesia's similarities with and differences from sleep and coma

The use of general anesthesia is a routine part of surgical operations at hospitals and medical facilities around the world, but the precise biological mechanisms that underlie anesthetic drugs' effects on the brain and the body are only beginning to be understood. A review article in the December 30 New England Journal of Medicine brings together for the first time information from a range of disciplines, including neuroscience and sleep medicine, to lay the groundwork for more comprehensive investigations of processes underlying general anesthesia.

30 Dec 2010

Interaction of light with circadian systems

In a new paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Aziz Sancar, MD, PhD, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the UNC School of Medicine, and his colleagues have taken an important step in understanding the underlying molecular signals that influence a broad array of biological processes ranging from the sleep-wake cycle to cancer growth and development.

30 Dec 2010

Neuroscientists say that general anesthesia is a reversible coma

The brain under general anesthesia isn't "asleep" as surgery patients are often told -- it is placed into a state that is a reversible coma, according to three neuroscientists who have published an extensive review of general anesthesia, sleep and coma, in the Dec. 30 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

30 Dec 2010

FDA approves Endo's FORTESTA Gel for low testosterone

Endo Pharmaceuticals today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved FORTESTA Gel for the treatment of low testosterone, or 'Low T,' also known as hypogonadism. Symptoms associated with Low T include erectile dysfunction and decreased sexual desire, fatigue and loss of energy, mood depression, regression of secondary sexual characteristics and osteoporosis.

29 Dec 2010

New study reports close association between obesity and fibromyalgia

Afflicting up to 5 percent of the U.S. population, mostly women, fibromyalgia is characterized by widespread pain and range of function problems. A new study in The Journal of Pain reports there is close association between obesity and disability in fibromyalgia patients.

29 Dec 2010

Experimental device for obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea, a dangerous sleep disorder that affects millions of Americans may have found a cure. The disease commonly manifested as snoring but leading to tremendous sleep deprivation can be severely debilitating. Sleep deprivation may lead to car crashes, accidents, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and diabetes.

29 Dec 2010

Florida Hospital, Sanford-Burnham and Takeda enter obesity research collaboration

Florida Hospital, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Takeda)(TSE: 4502), announced today that they have signed a research agreement to form a collaboration to discover and evaluate new therapeutic approaches to obesity, a growing worldwide health problem. The partnership aligns complementary strengths in biomedical research, clinical research and drug development to identify and validate obesity- related biomarkers and new peripheral molecular targets of mutual interest.

29 Dec 2010

Natus Medical ships ALGO hearing screeners to New South Wales

Natus Medical Incorporated today announced that it was awarded, and has shipped, a $1.3 million order for its ALGO hearing screeners from New South Wales, Australia's most populous state.

29 Dec 2010

Appalachian Regional Healthcare sues West Virginia DHHR, Bureau for Medical Services over Medicaid reimbursements

Appalachian Regional Healthcare, Inc., yesterday filed a lawsuit against the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) and its Bureau for Medical Services for inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rates that threaten the continued operation of the not-for-profit Beckley ARH Hospital (BARH). The suit was filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.

29 Dec 2010

Cephalon receives second FDA Complete Response Letter for NUVIGIL sNDA

Cephalon, Inc. today announced that the company received a second Complete Response Letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for NUVIGIL(R) (armodafinil) Tablets [C-IV] for the treatment of patients with excessive sleepiness associated with jet lag disorder resulting from eastbound travel. In its letter to the company, the FDA reiterated its previously stated concerns regarding the NUVIGIL sNDA.

28 Dec 2010

Oxytocin makes individuals feel calmer and dampens effect on fear receptor in the brain

"My husband of thirty-five years passed away seven years ago, and I lost my daughter in a car accident last year, I honestly could no longer find the energy to smile or laugh," recounts sixty-year-old widow Opal Perry. "My son suggested I try a new hormone being touted to help with symptoms of depression, called oxytocin. After the second day I was driving and caught myself smiling in the mirror. I couldn't believe it. I had to do a double take. I hadn't really smiled in seven years! I thought I would never smile again until now."

23 Dec 2010

Mobile trends, FDA regulations to be explored at Digital Health Summit 2011

Mobile technology has changed the way we live our lives. Going beyond business productivity, mobile devices have become the preferred way for consumers to manage everything from their finances to personal health, with the latter being the fastest growing corner of the category.

23 Dec 2010

Pfizer seeks FDA and EMA approval for expanded use of Prevnar 13 for pneumococcal disease

Pfizer Inc today announced that it has submitted supplemental applications to both the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to expand the use of Prevnar 13® (Pneumococcal 13-valent Conjugate Vaccine [Diphtheria CRM197 Protein]) to adults 50 years of age and older for the prevention of pneumococcal disease caused by the 13 serotypes contained in the vaccine.

23 Dec 2010