Sleep Blog

Children from low income families have more sleep problems than children from middle class families, potentially impacting their health and performance at school, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 59th Annual Meeting in Boston earlier this month.

The study compared the sleeping habits of 64 healthy inner city children, who were African American and Hispanic, to the sleeping patterns of children from middle class, Caucasian families. The children were 4 to 10 years old. Parents were asked to fill out a survey, which examined amount of sleep, sleep anxiety, night awakenings, night terrors, bed wetting, sleep walking, sleep disordered breathing, daytime sleepiness, bedtime resistance, and the time it took their children to fall asleep.

The study found children from low income families had 25 percent more incidents of sleeping problems than children from middle class families.

“While these results aren’t surprising, they need to be followed up with a study involving a larger number of children since sleeping problems can have a negative impact on a child’s health and may hinder a child’s performance at school,” said study author Anuj Chawla, MS, with Tulane University’s School of Medicine in New Orleans, LA.

The study was performed at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, under the supervision of Sanjeev Kothare, MD, member of the American Academy of Neurology.

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of over 20,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit .

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I get at least 10 emails, sometimes actual letters sent via the U.S. Postal Service, and several phone calls each week on the topic of leading a person to health information. The basic letter is something like this:

Help me, please! From what I can tell, my lover of three years has apnea. I’ve researched the signs and symptoms, and the snoring, gasping for air (sometimes actual snorting, sort of like a pig, but that just doesn’t sound nice), excessive sleepiness during what should be “waking hours,” and other symptoms are all present. Some of the more serious effects, such as hypertension and heart failure aren’t present yet (a cardiac stress test ruled that out), so it isn’t life-or-death yet.

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According to a press release issued by Mayo Clinic, researchers and a group of international collaborators have discovered a correlation between an extreme form of sleep disorder and eventual onset of parkinsonism or dementia. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Brain.

Clinical observations and pathology studies, as well as research in animal models, led to the findings that patients with the violent rapid eye movement sleep (REM) behavior disorder (RBD) have a high probability of later developing Lewy body dementia, Parkinson’s disease or multiple system atrophy (a Parkinson’s-like disorder), because all of these conditions appear to stem from a similar neurodegenerative origin. Continue Reading »

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Having sleep apnea increases an individual’s chances of suffering heart attack or death by 30 percent over a four- to five-year period, according to the findings of a study presented at the American Thoracic Society’s 2007 International Conference.

The more severe the sleep apnea at the beginning of the study, the greater the risk of developing heart disease or dying, the study found.

“While previous studies have shown an association between sleep apnea and heart disease, ours is a large study that allowed us to not only follow patients for five years and look at the association between sleep apnea and the combined outcome of heart attack and death, but also adjust for other traditional risk factors for heart disease,” says researcher Neomi Shah, M.D., of Yale University.

“We recommend that patients who experience symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea – excessive daytime sleepiness, or snoring along with breathing pauses – consult their physician,” Dr. Shah says. “There is some evidence to make us believe that when sleep apnea is appropriately treated, the risk of heart disease can be lowered.”

In obstructive sleep apnea, the upper airway narrows, or collapses, during sleep. Periods of apnea end with a brief partial arousal that may disrupt sleep hundreds of times a night. Obesity is a major risk factor for sleep apnea.

The most effective treatment for sleep apnea is a technique called nasal CPAP, for continuous positive airway pressure, which delivers air through a mask while the patient sleeps, keeping the airway open. It has proved successful in many cases in providing a good night’s sleep, preventing daytime accidents due to sleepiness and improving quality of life.

The study included 1,123 patients referred for sleep apnea evaluation. They underwent an overnight sleep study to determine if they had sleep apnea. Over the next four to five years, they were followed to see how many had any heart disease events (heart attack, coronary angiography or bypass surgery) or died.

Sleep apnea triggers the body’s “fight or flight” mechanism, which decreases the amount of blood pumped to the heart. Repeated episodes every night for a few years can starve the heart of enough oxygen when it is combined with the body’s decreased oxygen intake due to the frequent breathing stoppages during the night, Dr. Shah says.

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