Sleep Blog

Delaying an adolescent’s school start time by one hour has a positive effect on his or her cognitive performance, according to a research abstract presented at Sleep 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

The study, authored by Orna Tzischinsky, PhD, of Emek Yezreel College in Israel, focused on 47 eighth graders from two classes, who were divided into experimental and control groups for a two-week period. On week one, the experimental class began their school day one hour later than usual 8:30 a.m. start time. The control class, however, started right on time, as far as the school district was concerned: promptly at 7:30 a.m. On week two, both classes began at 7:30 a.m.

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A study published in the May 1, 2008 issue of the journal Sleep is the first attempt to quantify the strength of the cross-sectional relationships between duration of sleep and obesity in both children and adults. Cross-sectional studies from around the world show a consistent increased risk of obesity among short sleepers in children and adults, the study found.

Francesco P. Cappuccio, M.D., of Warwick Medical School in the United Kingdom, and colleagues performed a systematic search of publications on the relationship between short sleep duration and obesity risk. Criteria for inclusion were: report of duration of sleep as exposure, body mass index (BMI) as continuous outcome and prevalence of obesity as categorical outcome, number of participants, age and gender.

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