Mother’s Day: Restless Legs, Sleepless Moms

Every mom deserves a good night of sleep for Mother’s Day. But good sleep can be especially hard to come by for women with restless legs syndrome.

RLS involves a strong, almost irresistible urge to move your legs. This urge gets worse at night and eases in the morning. The need to move your legs increases when you lie or sit still. Temporary relief can be found by walking or moving the legs.

Often RLS also involves an uncomfortable feeling in the legs. It may be hard to describe what this feels like. It might be a burning, prickling, itching or tingling sensation.

RLS can have a severe effect on your sleep. It may prevent you from falling asleep. It also may keep you from returning to sleep if you wake up during the night.

Women are more likely than men to have RLS. It also is common during pregnancy.

There are many drugs that can help treat RLS. Mirapex and Requip are both FDA-approved for RLS. Reuters reported recently that Lyrica also may be a helpful treatment for RLS.

Last week the Dallas Morning News shared one woman’s story of what it’s like to suffer from RLS. “It's as if everything from the waist down wants to dance when everything from the waist up wants to sleep,” she says.

You can get help for RLS from an AASM-accredited sleep center near you.

NHL Playoffs: Is Sleep the Secret to Vancouver’s Success?

The NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers weren’t the only pro sports team getting advice from a sleep doctor this year. Canada’s CBC Sports reports that the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks followed a similar sleep strategy this season.

The results for both teams were positive. The Blazers took a 54-28 record into the first round of the playoffs. The Canucks finished the regular season 45-27-10. Then they swept the St. Louis Blues out of the playoffs in four games.

The Canucks were 3-0 on the road in the playoffs before losing in Chicago on Thursday. Now their series with the Blackhawks is tied at two games each. Has sleep been their secret weapon this season?

Each player’s sleep was monitored early in the season. Then the team’s sleep doctor made recommendations for flight times, practice times and days off.

The Canucks will try to take the series lead tonight in Vancouver. Then the series will return to Chicago on Monday.

Image by Kate Harrington

New Study Suggests that Narcolepsy is an Autoimmune Disorder

Scientists have made another major breakthrough in understanding the sleep disorder narcolepsy. A new study suggests that it is an autoimmune disorder.

Results show that people with narcolepsy are more likely to have a unique variant of a specific gene belonging to T cells. These cells play an important role in the response of the immune system.

“Our discovery clearly shows narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease,” study author Dr. Emmanuel Mignot said in a Stanford statement. “We’re now getting the main pieces of what’s happening in narcolepsy.”

The NIH reports that one of those pieces involves a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene. People with narcolepsy are likely to have a variant of an HLA gene. Along with T cells, HLA proteins help the immune system identify invaders such as bacteria and viruses.

Another piece of the puzzle was the discovery that people with narcolepsy lack brain cells that make hypocretin. This is a hormone that helps promote wakefulness. The finding helped explain why people with narcolepsy have episodes of uncontrollable sleepiness.

But the loss of hypocretin-producing brain cells occurs over time; narcolepsy typically appears after 15 years of age.

Why do these brain cells die in people with narcolepsy? The new study suggests that the immune system attacks and destroys the brain cells by mistake.

So is the case closed? Not yet. The HLA and T-cell variants fail to fully explain narcolepsy. Some people with these genetic variations never develop the disorder.

Why? That is still unclear. But Dr. Mignot believes that a chain reaction is involved.

"Narcolepsy is probably the result of a series of unfortunate events,” he told BBC News.

Mignot said that the genetic variations “predispose” you to have narcolepsy; they put you at risk. But it may take some kind of “trigger” - such as in infection - to set the disorder in motion. This trigger may activate the immune system response that kills hypocretin cells.

There is still more to learn about narcolepsy. But this new discovery may help doctors learn how to stop the disorder from developing.

Sleep Around the World: What about Children?

As the Sleep Education Blog reported, the OECD recently compared the sleep times of people in 18 countries. It found that people in Korea and Japan get the least sleep; people in the U.S. have the second-highest daily sleep time. The U.S. time use survey involved people who were 15 years of age and older.

But what about children? Are there differences around the world in how long children normally sleep?

A study abstract presented last June at SLEEP 2008 provided some insights. It focused on 17 countries that were primarily Asian or Caucasian.

The study involved parents of more than 21,000 infants and toddlers; the age range of the children was from newborn to three years of age. The parents completed a questionnaire about their child’s sleep.

The study found a pattern that is similar to the OECD report. Results suggest that young children in Asian countries get less sleep each day than young children in Caucasian countries. Asian children also have later bedtimes. There were no differences in night wakings or napping behaviors.

Hong Kong children are up the latest with an average bedtime of 10:10 p.m. Children in Indonesia, Taiwan and Korea also go to bed after 10 p.m. Children in New Zealand go to bed the earliest; their average bedtime is 7:16 p.m. Children in Australia and the U.K. also go to bed before 8 p.m. U.S. children have the seventh-earliest bedtime of 8:52 p.m.

An early bedtime helps New Zealand children get the most sleep; they sleep for an average of 13.3 hours per day. This total combines nightly sleep and daytime naps. Children in Australia and the U.K. also get more than 13 hours of daily sleep. U.S. children rank fifth with an average of 12.9 hours of total sleep time per day. Japanese children have the lowest total sleep time of 11.6 hours per day. Children in Indonesia and Korea also get less than 12 hours of sleep per day.

The AASM reports that newborns up to three months of age need about 16 to 20 hours of total sleep time per day. Infants between three months and 12 months of age need about 14 to 15 hours of sleep per day. Toddlers between the ages of one year and four years need about 12 to 14 hours of total sleep time.

Image by Fui

Sleep in America: A Closer Look at the Time Use Survey Data

Yesterday, the Sleep Education Blog described a new OECD report. It states that the U.S. ranks second in the world in average daily sleep time. Today, let’s take a closer look at the survey data.

The OECD report states that survey methods may vary to some degree between the 18 participating countries. In the U.S., the American Time Use Survey includes people 15 years of age and older.

The survey is conducted by telephone. Respondents report how long they slept between 4 a.m. on the previous day and 4 a.m. on the day of the survey.

So the survey doesn’t measure a person’s typical sleep duration. And “sleep time” includes both nighttime sleep and daytime naps.

The average self-reported sleep times in the survey vary by age. The 2007 American Time Use Survey shows that teens and older adults get the most sleep. Teens report sleeping about 9.5 hours per day; adults age 65 and up get about 8.9 hours of sleep per day.

People in the U.S. also tend to sleep in on the weekends. The 2007 survey shows that Americans sleep about 9.2 hours on weekend days; this is almost an hour more than the 8.3 hours they report sleeping on weekdays.

But these numbers don’t tell the whole story. The broad strokes of this survey fail to paint an accurate picture of sleep problems in the U.S.

Another survey by the NCHS shows that many U.S. adults get much less sleep on a regular basis. About 21 percent of adults reported that they usually sleep for only six hours; another eight percent usually sleep for less than 6 hours.

The OECD report and the American Time Use Survey also fail to take sleep disorders into account. It is estimated that 50 million to 70 million people in the U.S. suffer from a sleep disorder.

Common disorders such as sleep apnea can ruin your sleep quality. This can impair your health and alertness no matter how many hours of sleep you get.