Fatigue and Sleep Linked to Major League Baseball Performance, Career Longevity

May 31, 2013 —

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Two new studies show that fatigue may impair strike-zone judgment during the 162 game Major League Baseball season, and a MLB player's sleepiness can predict his longevity in the league.

One study found that MLB players' strike-zone judgment was worse in September than in April in 24 of 30 teams. When averaged across all teams, strike-zone judgment was significantly worse in September compared with April. The statistical model demonstrated strong predictive value through the season.

"Plate discipline -- as measured by a hitter's tendency to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone -- got progressively worse over the course of a Major League Baseball season, and this decline followed a linear pattern that could be predicted by data from the six previous seasons," said principal investigator Scott Kutscher, MD, assistant professor of sleep and neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. "We theorize that this decline is tied to fatigue that develops over the course of the season due to a combination of frequency of travel and paucity of days off."

Another study found a significant and profound relationship between the sleepiness of a MLB player and his longevity in the league. As baseline self-reported scores of sleepiness on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale increased, the likelihood that a player would be in the league three seasons later decreased linearly. For example, 72 percent of players with a baseline ESS score of 5 were still in the league at the follow-up point, compared with only 39 percent of players with an ESS score of 10 and 14 percent of players with an ESS score of 15.

"We were shocked by how linear the relationship was," said principal investigator W. Christopher Winter, MD, medical director of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Va. "It is a great reminder that sleepiness impairs performance. From a sports perspective, this is incredibly important. What this study shows is that we can use the science of sleep to predict sports performance."

Winter added that teams easily could implement sleepiness screening as part of their player evaluation system. "I can envision simple questions about sleep being a part of the battery of tests professional organizations use to evaluate prospects," he said. He also noted that players and their teams could benefit tremendously if a sleep specialist diagnoses and treats the condition causing a player to experience excessive daytime sleepiness. "That player may suddenly become far more valuable," Winter said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130531105506.htm

Eating More Berries May Reduce Cognitive Decline in the Elderly

April 26, 2012

Science Daily/Wiley-Blackwell

Blueberries and strawberries, which are high in flavonoids, appear to reduce cognitive decline in older adults according to a new study recently published in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society. The study results suggest that cognitive aging could be delayed by up to 2.5 years in elderly who consume greater amounts of the flavonoid-rich berries.

Flavonoids are compounds found in plants that generally have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Experts believe that stress and inflammation contribute to cognitive impairment and that increasing consumption of flavonoids could mitigate the harmful effects. Previous studies of the positive effects of flavonoids, particularly anthocyanidins, are limited to animal models or very small trials in older persons, but have shown greater consumption of foods with these compounds improve cognitive function.

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, elderly Americans -- those 65 years of age and older -- increased by 15% between 2000 and 2010, faster than the total U.S. population, which saw a 9.7% increase during the same time period. "As the U.S. population ages, understanding the health issues facing this group becomes increasingly important," said Dr. Elizabeth Devore with Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. "Our study examined whether greater intake of berries could slow rates of cognitive decline."

The research team used data from the Nurses' Health Study -- a cohort of 121,700 female, registered nurses between the ages of 30 and 55 who completed health and lifestyle questionnaires beginning in 1976. Since 1980 participants were surveyed every four years regarding their frequency of food consumption. Between 1995 and 2001, cognitive function was measured in 16,010 subjects over the age of 70 years, at 2-year intervals. Women included in the present study had a mean age of 74 and mean body mass index of 26.

Findings show that increased consumption of blueberries and strawberries appear to slow cognitive decline in older women. A greater intake of anthocyanidins and total flavonoids was also associated with reduce cognitive degeneration. Researchers observed that women who had higher berry intake delayed cognitive aging by up to 2.5 years. The authors caution that while they did control for other health factors in the modeling, they cannot rule out the possibility that the preserved cognition in those who eat more berries may be also influenced by other lifestyle choices, such as exercising more.

"We provide the first epidemiologic evidence that berries may slow progression of cognitive decline in elderly women," notes Dr. Devore. "Our findings have significant public health implications as increasing berry intake is a fairly simple dietary modification to test cognition protection in older adults."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120426110250.htm

Older Adults Who Sleep Poorly React to Stress with Increased Inflammation

March 1, 2012

Science Daily/University of Rochester Medical Center

Older adults who sleep poorly have an altered immune system response to stress that may increase risk for mental and physical health problems, according to a study led by a University of Rochester Medical Center researcher.

In the study, stress led to significantly larger increases in a marker of inflammation in poor sleepers compared to good sleepers -- a marker associated with poor health outcomes and death.

"This study offers more evidence that better sleep not only can improve overall well-being but also may help prevent poor physiological and psychological outcomes associated with inflammation," said Kathi L. Heffner, Ph.D., assistant professor of Psychiatry at the Medical Center.

Poor sleepers reported more depressive symptoms, more loneliness and more global perceived stress relative to good sleepers. Poor sleepers did not differ from good sleepers when IL-6 was measured before the tests began. Across the group, the participants showed increases in IL-6. However, poor sleepers had a significantly larger increase in IL-6 in response to the stressful tests compared to good sleepers, as much as four times larger and at a level found to increase risk for illness and death in older adults.

A further analysis of the results for the impact of loneliness, depression or perceived stress on IL-6 levels found no association. Poor sleep stood as the predictor of elevated inflammation levels.

"We found no evidence that poor sleep made them deal poorly with a stressful situation. They did just as well on the tests as the good sleepers. We did not expect that," Heffner said. "We did find that they were in a worse mood after the stressor than a good sleeper, but that change in mood did not predict the heightened inflammatory response."

As people age, a gradual decline in the immune system occurs along with an increase in inflammation. Heightened inflammation increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other illnesses, as well as psychiatric problems.

While relatively little is known about the pathways through which poor sleep impacts circulating levels of inflammatory proteins, the study led by Heffner provides a clinical target for preventing poor outcomes for older adults.

"There are a lot of sleep problems among older adults," Heffner said. "Older adults do not have to sleep poorly. We can intervene on sleep problems in older adulthood. Helping an elderly person become a better sleeper may reduce the risk of poor outcomes associated with inflammation."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120301103758.htm

Eating fish reduces risk of Alzheimer's disease

December 1, 2011

Science Daily/Radiological Society of North America

People who eat baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis may be improving their brain health and reducing their risk of developing mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study.

"This is the first study to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer's risk," said Cyrus Raji, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "The results showed that people who consumed baked or broiled fish at least one time per week had better preservation of gray matter volume on MRI in brain areas at risk for Alzheimer's disease."

Alzheimer's disease is an incurable, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and cognitive skills. According to the National Institute on Aging, as many as 5.1 million Americans may have Alzheimer's disease. In MCI, memory loss is present but to a lesser extent than in Alzheimer's disease. People with MCI often go on to develop Alzheimer's disease.

The findings showed that consumption of baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis was positively associated with gray matter volumes in several areas of the brain. Greater hippocampal, posterior cingulate and orbital frontal cortex volumes in relation to fish consumption reduced the risk for five-year decline to MCI or Alzheimer's by almost five-fold.

"Consuming baked or broiled fish promotes stronger neurons in the brain's gray matter by making them larger and healthier," Dr. Raji said. "This simple lifestyle choice increases the brain's resistance to Alzheimer's disease and lowers risk for the disorder." The results also demonstrated increased levels of cognition in people who ate baked or broiled fish.

"Working memory, which allows people to focus on tasks and commit information to short-term memory, is one of the most important cognitive domains," Dr. Raji said. "Working memory is destroyed by Alzheimer's disease. We found higher levels of working memory in people who ate baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis, even when accounting for other factors, such as education, age, gender and physical activity." Eating fried fish, on the other hand, was not shown to increase brain volume or protect against cognitive decline.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130095257.htm

Depression and chronic stress accelerates aging

November 10, 2011

Science Daily/Umeå University

People with recurrent depressions or those exposed to chronic stress exhibits shorter telomeres in white blood cells.

The telomere is the outermost part of the chromosome. With increasing age, telomeres shorten, and studies have shown that oxidative stress and inflammation accelerates this shortening. On this basis it has been suggested that telomere length is a measure of biological aging, and telomere length has subsequently been linked to age-related diseases, unhealthy lifestyle, and longevity.

The research team shows that shorter telomere length is associated with both recurrent depression and cortisol levels indicative of exposure to chronic stress.

"The test revealed that cortisol levels indicative of chronic stress stress are associated with shorter telomeres in both depressed and healthy individuals," says Mikael Wikgren, a doctoral candidate in the research group.

The fact that depressed patients as a group have shorter telomere lengths compared to healthy individuals can be largely explained by the fact that more depressed people than healthy people have disturbed cortisol regulation, which underscores that cortisol regulation and stress play a major role in depressive disorders.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111109093729.htm

An apple or pear a day may keep strokes away

September 16, 2011

Science Daily/American Heart Association

Eating apples and pears may help prevent stroke, according to a new study. While high consumption of fruits and vegetables is associated with lower stroke risk, a Dutch study found that eating fruit and vegetables with white edible portions was associated with a 52 percent lower stroke risk. Apples and pears were the majority of the white fruits and vegetables consumed in the study.

While previous studies have linked high consumption of fruits and vegetables with lower stroke risk, the researchers' prospective work is the first to examine associations of fruits and vegetable color groups with stroke. The color of the edible portion of fruits and vegetables reflects the presence of beneficial phytochemicals such as carotenoids and flavonoids.

Fruits and vegetables were classified in four color groups:

• ·      Green, including dark leafy vegetables, cabbages and lettuces
• ·      Orange/Yellow, which were mostly citrus fruits
• ·      Red/Purple, which were mostly red vegetables
• ·      White, of which 55 percent were apples and pears

"To prevent stroke, it may be useful to consume considerable amounts of white fruits and vegetables," said Linda M. Oude Griep, M.Sc., lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in human nutrition at Wageningen Uninversity in the Netherlands. "For example, eating one apple a day is an easy way to increase white fruits and vegetable intake.

"However, other fruits and vegetable color groups may protect against other chronic diseases. Therefore, it remains of importance to consume a lot of fruits and vegetables."

Apples and pears are high in dietary fiber and a flavonoid called quercetin. In the study, other foods in the white category were bananas, cauliflower, chicory and cucumber.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110915163523.htm

Older musicians experience less age-related decline in hearing abilities than non-musicians

September 14, 2011

Science Daily/Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care

A study led by Canadian researchers has found the first evidence that lifelong musicians experience less age-related hearing problems than non-musicians. While hearing studies have already shown that trained musicians have highly developed auditory abilities compared to non-musicians, this is the first study to examine hearing abilities in musicians and non-musicians across the age spectrum -- from 18 to 91 years of age.

While hearing studies have already shown that trained musicians have highly developed auditory abilities compared to non-musicians, this is the first study to examine hearing abilities in musicians and non-musicians across the age spectrum -- from 18 to 91 years of age.

"What we found was that being a musician may contribute to better hearing in old age by delaying some of the age-related changes in central auditory processing. This advantage widened considerably for musicians as they got older when compared to similar-aged non-musicians," said lead investigator Benjamin Rich Zendel at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute..

Scientists found that being a musician did not offer any advantage in the pure-tone thresholds test, across the age span. However, in the three other auditory tasks -- mistuned harmonic detection, gap detection and speech-in-noise -- musicians showed a clear advantage over non-musicians and this advantage gap widened as both groups got older. By age 70, the average musician was able to understand speech in a noisy environment as well as an average 50 year old non-musician, suggesting that lifelong musicianship can delay this age-related decline by 20 years.

Most importantly, the three assessments where musicians demonstrated an advantage all rely on auditory processing in the brain, while pure-tone thresholds do not. This suggests that lifelong musicianship mitigates age-related changes in the brains of musicians, which is probably due to musicians using their auditory systems at a high level on a regular basis. In other words, "use it or lose it."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110913091557.htm

Memory fitness program improves memory abilities of oldest adults

August 31, 2011

Science Daily/University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

Who hasn't forgotten someone's name, misplaced their glasses or walked into a room and not remembered why they entered? Normal age-related memory decline affects more than half of all seniors, and those over 80 are the most vulnerable.

A new UCLA study has found that a memory fitness program offered to older adults in their senior living communities helped improve their ability to recognize and recall words, benefitting their verbal learning and retention.

Published in the September issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, the study also found that as a result of the program, seniors' self-perceived memory improved, an important factor in maintaining a positive outlook on life while aging. The average age of participants in the study was 81.

"It was exciting to see how much older adults participate in a memory fitness program and improve," said study author Dr. Karen Miller, an associate clinical professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "The study demonstrates that it's never too late to learn new skills to enhance one's life."

As people get older, it takes longer to learn new information and to retrieve it, including names, dates, the location of household objects, meetings, and appointments, according to the study's senior author, Dr. Gary Small, UCLA's Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging and director of the UCLA Longevity Center.

The six-week, 12-session program differed from other cognitive training courses in that it offered not only memory-training techniques but also education about lifestyle factors that may impact memory ability and overall brain health. Participants learned stress-reduction exercises and were instructed about the importance of daily physical exercise and maintaining a healthy diet rich in antioxidants.

Among the older adults attending the classes, the researchers found marked improvement in verbal memory, as well as improvements in how they perceived their memory, compared with the controls.

"We found that the memory fitness program was readily accepted by residents in our senior living communities and that it directly benefited many of them," said John Parrish, Ph.D., executive director of the Erickson Foundation. "In fact, we are now offering the program in nearly all of our 16 communities across the nation."

"The study suggests that the memory fitness program may be a cost-effective means of addressing some of the memory-related concerns of healthy older adults," Parrish added.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110829131310.htm

Secret to successful aging: How 'positivity effect' works in brain

July 14, 2011

Science Daily/Elsevier

Whether we choose to accept or fight it, the fact is that we will all age, but will we do so successfully? Aging successfully has been linked with the “positivity effect”, a biased tendency towards and preference for positive, emotionally gratifying experiences. New research published in Biological Psychiatry now explains how and when this effect works in the brain.

German neuroscientists studied this effect by using neuroimaging to evaluate brain engagement in young and old adults while they performed a specialized cognitive task that included supposedly irrelevant pictures of either neutral, happy, sad or fearful faces. During parts of the task when they didn't have to pay as much attention, the elderly subjects were significantly more distracted by the happy faces. When this occurred, they had increased engagement in the part of the brain that helps control emotions and this stronger signal in the brain was correlated with those who showed the greatest emotional stability.

"Integrating our findings with the assumptions of life span theories we suggest that motivational goal-shifting in healthy aging leads to a self-regulated engagement in positive emotions even when this is not required by the setting," explained author Dr. Stefanie Brassen. "In addition, our finding of a relationship between rostral anterior cingulate cortex activity and emotional stability further strengthens the hypothesis that this increased emotional control in aging enhances emotional well being."

"The lessons of healthy aging seem to be similar to those of resilience, throughout life. As recently summarized in other work by Drs. Dennis Charney and Steven Southwick, when coping with extremely stressful life challenges, it is critical to realistically appraise the situation but also to approach it with a positive attitude," noted Dr. John H. Krystal, the Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714072903.htm

Keeping up your overall health may keep dementia away

July 13, 2011

Science Daily/American Academy of Neurology

Improving and maintaining health factors not traditionally associated with dementia, such as denture fit, vision and hearing, may lower a person's risk for developing dementia, according to a new study.

"Our study suggests that rather than just paying attention to already known risk factors for dementia, such as diabetes or heart disease, keeping up with your general health may help reduce the risk for dementia," said study author Kenneth Rockwood, MD, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The study found that each health problem increased a person's odds of developing dementia by 3.2 percent compared to people without such health problems. Older adults without health problems at baseline had an 18 percent chance to become demented in 10 years, while such risk increased to 30 percent and 40 percent in those who had 8 and 12 health problems, respectively.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110713161824.htm

Common irregular heartbeat raises risk of dementia

August 30, 2011

Science Daily/Group Health Research Institute

The most common kind of chronically irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation, is associated with a greater risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study.

"Both atrial fibrillation and dementia increase with age," said Sascha Dublin, MD, PhD, a Group Health Research Institute assistant investigator who led the research. "Before our prospective cohort study, we knew that atrial fibrillation can cause stroke, which can lead to dementia. Now we've learned that atrial fibrillation may increase dementia risk in other, more subtle ways as well."

The results of Dr. Dublin's study suggest a relationship between atrial fibrillation and dementia beyond the connection through stroke. The people in the study had a mean age of 74 years when the study began. None had dementia or a history of stroke. At the beginning of the study, 4.3 percent had atrial fibrillation, and an additional 12.2 percent developed it during the study.

In the course of the study, 18.8 percent developed some type of dementia. People with atrial fibrillation were more likely to have other cardiovascular risk factors and disease than were those without the condition. So the researchers looked to see if atrial fibrillation increased dementia risk more than just through its association with other kinds of heart disease.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110808104621.htm

New Evidence of Age-Related Decline in the Brain's Master Circadian Clock

July 25, 2011

Science Daily/University of California - Los Angeles

A new study of the brain's master circadian clock -- known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN -- reveals that a key pattern of rhythmic neural activity begins to decline by middle age. The study, whose senior author is UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, may have implications for the large number of older people who have difficulty sleeping and adjusting to time changes.

"Aging has a profound effect on circadian timing," said Block, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and of physiological science. "It is very clear that animals' circadian systems begin to deteriorate as they age, and humans have enormous problems with the quality of their sleep as they age, difficulty adjusting to time-zone changes and difficulty performing shift-work, as well as less alertness when awake. There is a real change in the sleep-wake cycle.

"The question is, what changes in the nervous system underlie all of that? This paper suggests a primary cause of at least some of these changes is a reduction in the amplitude of the rhythmic signals from the SCN."

The SCN, located in the hypothalamus, is the central circadian clock in humans and other mammals and controls not only the timing of the sleep-wake cycle but also many other rhythmic and non-rhythmic processes in the body.

The SCN keeps the system of multiple distributed circadian oscillators in synchrony, but disruptions in the SCN lead to disrupted sleep, as well as dysfunction in memory, the cardiovascular system, and the body's immune response and metabolism.

The SCN, Block said, can be imagined as a heavy pendulum that controls many light pendulums (oscillators), with rubber bands between them.

"If the central clock weakens, it's effectively like making those rubber bands thinner and weaker," Block said. "When the SCN ages and those rubber bands become weaker, it becomes hard for the SCN to synchronize all of these other oscillators."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110719093808.htm

Sleeping Well at 100 Years of Age: The Secrets to Healthy Longevity

May 2, 2010

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

A study in the May 1 issue of the journal Sleep is the first to examine sleep issues in a large sample of exceptionally old adults, including nearly 2,800 people who were 100 years of age and older.

Results show that about 65 percent of the sample reported that their sleep quality was good or very good, and the weighted average daily sleep time was about 7.5 hours including naps.

Surprisingly, the oldest adults aged 100 and above were 70 percent more likely to report good sleep quality than younger participants aged 65 to 79, after controlling for variables such as demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status and health conditions. Men were 23 percent more likely than women to report sleeping well.

Adults aged 80 and over tended to have a sleep duration that was either shorter or longer than adults aged 65 to 79, which was primarily due to deteriorating health. Controlling for health conditions showed that participants who were 100 years of age and older were less likely than the youngest elders to sleep for five or fewer hours per day, but they were almost three times more likely to sleep for 10 hour or more. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100501013521.htm

Older People Advised That Taking an Afternoon Nap Can Lead to More Active Lives

October 26, 2010

Science Daily/University of Surrey

Experts at the University of Surrey discovered that many older people felt that they may be branded lazy for taking afternoon naps so they tried hard to avoid nodding off.

But the occasional nap can make older people more able to lead a fully active life by giving them enough energy to take part in recreational and social activities.

Susan Venn, of the Department of Sociology said: "Sleep is central to health and well-being, but as people get older, the quality of their sleep can deteriorate. They shouldn't feel guilty or think themselves lazy for having a nap."

The new research also found that as older people often have more disturbed sleep patterns at night they try to avoid taking a nap during the day only to fall asleep watching television during the early evening. As a result they may end up feeling exhausted..

Another finding was that older men and women lose sleep because of having to get up several times a night to go to the toilet, so they may cut down on drinking fluids during the day believing this will help, even though they may become dehydrated.

One interviewee, called Anne, aged 71, from Berkshire, said "My main sleep problem is waking up in the early hours of the morning and not being able to get back to sleep.

"I sometimes find on a particularly bad night that I'm awake for three or four hours. I don't want to disturb my husband by tossing and turning, and trying to get back to sleep, so I tend to get up and do the housework, watch DVDs or use the computer.

"Sleep at the moment is a disappointment I suppose, because I feel I've improved my life style by doing all the things, diet, exercise and all this, and I'd hoped that the sleep would improve more than it has."

Susan Venn, of the Department of Sociology, a researcher on the project, explained: "Many of the older people we talked to described how disturbed their sleep was, especially in terms of waking up a lot in the night.

"Anne was like many of the older people we spoke to in that being active during the day was very important to them, and if they slept badly, it impacted on how much could be achieved.

"Many older people are prescribed medications to help them sleep, but research has shown that sleeping medication may impact on the lives of older people, such as increasing the risk of falls."

The new research called "Understanding poor sleep in the community" is linked to an academic conference on sleep issues among older people, based on the SomnIA (Sleep in Ageing) project (www.somnia.surrey.ac.uk).

The research by academics at the University of Surrey, along with colleagues at other institutions, tried to find ways of improving the sleep patterns of older people.

Researchers talked to 62 older men and women who are living in their own homes about their poor sleep patterns and three key findings emerged:

• Whilst many older people do not sleep well and feel tired during the day, they often do not want to take a nap because they believe daytime sleeping is a sign of laziness.
• Older people often get up in the night to go to the toilet, sometimes even several times a night. So, counter to current advice to drink plenty of fluids during the day, they may often severely restrict how much they drink.

• Older men and women would rather not visit their doctor for problems with their sleep, largely because of a concern they will be prescribed some form of sleeping medication. Keeping busy and active is important to many older people and they are concerned that sleeping medication may take away that control. Women, more than men, tended to explore alternative treatments and remedies for poor sleep, such as over the counter remedies and herbal medicines.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101026090834.htm

Probing the Secrets of Sharp Memory in Old Age

March 24, 2010

Science Daily/American Chemical Society

A study of the brains of people who stayed mentally sharp into their 80s and beyond challenges the notion that brain changes linked to mental decline and Alzheimer's disease are a normal, inevitable part of aging.

In a presentation given at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in San Fransisco March 23, Changiz Geula, Ph.D. and colleagues described their discovery of elderly people with super-sharp memory -- so-called "super-aged" individuals -- who somehow escaped formation of brain "tangles."

The tangles consist of an abnormal form of a protein called "tau" that damages and eventually kills nerve cells. Named for their snarled, knotted appearance under a microscope, tangles increase with advancing age and peak in people with Alzheimer's disease.

"This discovery is very exciting," said Geula, principal investigator of the Northwestern University Super Aging Project and a professor of neuroscience at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center. "It is the first study of its kind and its implications are vast.

We always assumed that the accumulation of tangles is a progressive phenomenon throughout the normal aging process. Healthy people develop moderate numbers of tangles, with the most severe cases linked to Alzheimer's disease. But now we have evidence that some individuals are immune to tangle formation.

The evidence also supports the notion that the presence of tangles may influence cognitive performance. Individuals with the fewest tangles perform at superior levels. Those with more appear to be normal for their age."’

The scientists found that super-aged people appear to fall into two subgroups: Those who are almost immune to tangle formation and those that have few tangles.

"One group of super-aged seems to dodge tangle formation," Geula explained. "Their brains are virtually clean, which doesn't happen in normal-aged individuals. The other group seems to get tangles but it's less than or equal to the amount in the normal elderly. But for some reason, they seem to be protected against its effects."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100323212139.htm

Healthy Adults May Need Less Sleep as They Age

February 2, 2010

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

A study in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Sleep suggests that healthy older adults without sleep disorders can expect to have a reduced "sleep need" and to be less sleepy during the day than healthy young adults.

Results show that during a night of eight hours in bed, total sleep time decreased significantly and progressively with age. Older adults slept about 20 minutes less than middle-aged adults, who slept 23 minutes less than young adults. The number of awakenings and the amount of time spent awake after initial sleep onset increased significantly with age, and the amount of time spent in deep, slow-wave sleep decreased across age groups. Yet even with these decreases in sleep time, intensity and continuity, older adults displayed less subjective and objective daytime sleep propensity than younger adults.

Furthermore, two additional nights involving experimental disruption of slow-wave sleep led to a similar response in all age groups. Daytime sleep propensity increased, and slow-wave sleep rebounded during a night of recovery sleep. According to the authors, this suggests that the lack of increased daytime sleepiness in the presence of an age-related deterioration in sleep quality cannot be attributed to unresponsiveness to variations in homeostatic sleep pressure. Instead, healthy aging appears to be associated with reductions in the sleep duration and depth required to maintain daytime alertness.

"Our findings reaffirm the theory that it is not normal for older people to be sleepy during the daytime," said principal investigator Derk-Jan Dijk, PhD, professor of sleep and physiology at the University of Surrey in the U.K. "Whether you are young or old, if you are sleepy during the day you either don't get enough sleep or you may suffer from a sleep disorder."

The study was conducted at the Clinical Research Centre of the University of Surrey and involved 110 healthy adults without sleep disorders or sleep complaints; 44 were young (20 to 30 years), 35 were middle-aged (40 to 55 years) and 31 were older adults (66 to 83 years). After an eight-hour baseline sleep test, subjects were randomized to two nights with or without selective slow-wave sleep disruption by acoustic stimuli, followed by one recovery night. Nighttime sleep was evaluated by polysomnography, while sleep propensity was assessed using the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) and the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale.

During the baseline night, mean objective total sleep time decreased from 433.5 minutes for young adults to 409.9 minutes for middle-aged adults and 390.4 minutes for older adults. Average minutes of slow-wave sleep decreased from 118.4 minutes for young adults to 85.3 minutes for middle-aged adults and 84.2 minutes for older adults. Mean number of minutes spent awake after initial sleep onset increased from 21 for young adults to 49.9 for middle-aged adults and 70.7 for older adults.

Objective daytime sleepiness measured by the MSLT decreased with age. When asked to lie in a comfortable position on the bed and try to fall asleep, young adults fell asleep in an average of 8.7 minutes, compared with 11.7 minutes for middle-aged adults and 14.2 minutes for older adults.

The authors noted that the cause of the age-related reductions in slow-wave sleep and sleep need still must be established. Related factors could include alterations in reproductive hormones or changes in the brain. They added that the study did not address sleep propensity during the evening hours, when it is possible that older adults may be sleepier than young adults.

According to the authors, the study also has implications for the treatment of insomnia in older adults, who may be unaware of their reduced sleep need. Therefore, sleep restriction, which leads to increased homeostatic sleep pressure, may be a successful behavioral therapy for insomnia in healthy older adults.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100201091632.htm

Sleep Disturbances Improve After Retirement

November 2, 2009

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

A new study in the journal Sleep shows that retirement is followed by a sharp decrease in the prevalence of sleep disturbances. Findings suggest that this general improvement in sleep is likely to result from the removal of work-related demands and stress rather than from actual health benefits of retirement.

Results show that the odds of having disturbed sleep in the seven years after retirement were 26 percent lower (adjusted odds ratio of 0.74) than in the seven years before retiring. Sleep disturbance prevalence rates among 14,714 participants fell from 24.2 percent in the last year before retirement to 17.8 percent in the first year after retiring.

The greatest reduction in sleep disturbances was reported by participants with depression or mental fatigue prior to retirement. The postretirement improvement in sleep also was more pronounced in men, management-level workers, employees who reported high psychological job demands, and people who occasionally or consistently worked night shifts.

Results also show that there is a slowly increasing prevalence of sleep disturbances with increasing age, which can be observed both before and after retirement. From the first to the seventh year after retirement, the prevalence of sleep disturbances increased from 17.8 percent to 19.7 percent but remained significantly lower than at any time point prior to retirement.

"We believe these findings are largely applicable in situations where financial incentives not to retire are relatively weak," said Vahtera. "In countries and positions where there is no proper pension level to guarantee financial security beyond working age, however, retirement may be followed by severe stress disturbing sleep even more than before retirement."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091101132537.htm

Light-Treatment Device to Improve Sleep Quality in the Elderly

June 1, 2009

Science Daily/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Sleep disturbances increase as we age. Some studies report more than half of seniors 65 years of age or older suffer from chronic sleep disturbances. Researchers have long believed that the sleep disturbances common among the elderly often result from a disruption of the body’s circadian rhythms — biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours.

In recent years, scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center and elsewhere have demonstrated that blue light is the most effective at stimulating the circadian system when combined with the appropriate light intensity, spatial distribution, timing, and duration. A team at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) has tested a goggle-like device designed to deliver blue light directly to the eyes to improve sleep quality in older adults.

“Light and dark patterns are the major synchronizer of circadian rhythms to the 24-hour solar day,” said Mariana Figueiro, Ph.D., Lighting Research Center Light and Health Program director and principal investigator on the project.  “Light stimulus travels through the retina, the light-sensitive nerve tissue lining the back wall of the eye, to reach the master clock in the brain. However, a combination of age-related changes in the eye and a more sedentary lifestyle may reduce the amount of light stimulus reaching an older person’s retina, therefore reducing the amount of light for the circadian system.”

As we age, the lens in the eye thickens and the pupil shrinks, reducing the amount of light passing through to the retina.  Making matters worse, in some cases, such as with persons with Alzheimer’s disease, the circadian system may require a stronger light stimulus due to deteriorating neural processes in the brain.  These physical and neural changes can lead to muted signals to the circadian system. Factor in environmental influences, such as an indoor lifestyle with less access to daylight, and you have a perfect scenario for the development of irregular sleep-activity patterns, according to Figueiro.

The research team explains that a marked increase in daytime lighting levels can counteract the age-dependent losses in retinal light exposure by providing a stronger signal to the circadian system.  However, the color and intensity of commercially available lighting systems, like those used in senior residences, assisted-living facilities, and nursing homes, are designed for visual effectiveness and minimal energy use and not necessarily efficacious for generating light to stimulate the older circadian system.

Commercially-available “white” light sources advertised to treat circadian-related sleep disorders are usually very bright light and can cause glare and compromise compliance.

In this project, the light-treatment prototype tested by Figueiro’s team was developed by Topbulb.com, LLC, based on prior LRC light and health research. The device offers an alternative approach using specially designed goggles that deliver blue light spectrally tuned for optimum circadian response.

“The goal of this phase of the development project was to create a device in a smaller form factor or envelope that allowed for social inclusion and end-user mobility, while still delivering the required dose of light,” said Topbulb.com Senior Developer Philip H. Bonello, Ph.D.

The device was worn by eleven subjects between the ages of 51 and 80 years of age. Each subject was exposed to two levels of blue light (about 50 lux and 10 lux) from the personal light-treatment device for 90 minutes on two separate nights.  Blood and saliva samples were collected at prescribed times to assess levels of nocturnal melatonin, a hormone used as a marker for the circadian clock, with high levels at night when a person is in a dark environment and low levels during the day.

After only one hour of light exposure, the light-induced nocturnal melatonin suppression level was about 35 percent for the low light level and about 60 percent for the high light level. In addition, the higher level of blue light suppressed nocturnal melatonin more quickly, to a greater extent over the course of the 90-minute exposure period, and was maintained after 60 minutes.

Having demonstrated its stimulation effect on the circadian system, the researchers believe the device could be subsequently used to increase sleep consolidation and efficiency in older subjects when worn for a prescribed duration at an appropriate time.

“The study suggests that the light goggles might be a practical, comfortable, and effective way to deliver light treatment to those suffering from circadian sleep disorders. The next steps are to conduct field studies where we will be testing the effectiveness of this personal light-treatment device on those suffering from circadian-related sleep disorders, while also verifying the acceptance of the device among the test groups,” said Figueiro.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090529112605.htm

Use of Bright Lighting May Improve Dementia Symptoms for Elderly Persons

June 11, 2008

Science Daily/JAMA and Archives Journals

The use of daytime bright lighting to improve the circadian rhythm of elderly persons was associated with modest improvement in symptoms of dementia, and the addition of the use of melatonin resulted in improved sleep, according to a new study.

"In elderly patients with dementia, cognitive decline is frequently accompanied by disturbances of mood, behavior, sleep, and activities of daily living, which increase caregiver burden and the risk of institutionalization," the author write. These symptoms have been associated with disturbances of the circadian rhythm (the regular recurrence, in cycles of about 24 hours, of biological processes or activities).

"The circadian timing system is highly sensitive to environmental light and the hormone melatonin and may not function optimally in the absence of their synchronizing effects. In elderly patients with dementia, synchronization may be [diminished] if light exposure and melatonin production are reduced."

Melatonin reduced the time to fall asleep by a relative 19 percent and increased total sleep duration by 6 percent, but adversely affected caregiver ratings of withdrawn behavior and mood expressions. The addition of bright light improved the adverse effect on mood. In combination with bright light, melatonin reduced aggressive behavior by a relative 9 percent.

"In conclusion, the simple measure of increasing the illumination level in group care facilities [improved] symptoms of disturbed cognition, mood, behavior, functional abilities, and sleep. Melatonin improved sleep, but its long-term use by elderly individuals can only be recommended in combination with light to suppress adverse effects on mood.

The long-term application of whole-day bright light did not have adverse effects, on the contrary, and could be considered for use in care facilities for elderly individuals with dementia," the authors write.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080610161247.htm

Insomnia May Perpetuate Depression in Some Elderly Patients

April 4, 2008

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

In addition to being a risk factor for a depressive episode, persistent insomnia may perpetuate the illness in some elderly patients, and especially in those receiving standard care for depression in primary care settings, according to a new study.

According to the results, patients with persistent insomnia were 1.8 to 3.5 times more likely to remain depressed, compared with patients with no insomnia. The findings were more robust in patients receiving usual care for depression than in patients receiving enhanced care. The findings were also stronger in subjects who had major depressive disorder as opposed to those with dysthymia alone.

"Even when depression was identified and treated in the primary care setting, the older adults in this study were more likely to remain depressed if they also exhibited persistent insomnia.

The finding that this risk was higher in the usual-care group suggests that enhanced depression care may partially mitigate the perpetuating effects of insomnia on depression," said Dr. Pigeon.

"While the findings make intuitive sense, until relatively recently insomnia was often considered a symptom that dissipated without active intervention once a primary condition like depression was treated, instead of being considered a distinct clinical entity that might affect a primary disorder. This study has several limitations, not the least of which are that it is not a causal study nor does it unequivocally answer the question of whether insomnia that presents with depression is a symptom or a co-morbid disorder. What seems most likely is that insomnia is indeed simply a symptom in some cases, but clearly a disorder requiring its own treatment focus in other cases."

Not sleeping well can lead to a number of problems. Older adults who have poor nighttime sleep are more likely to have a depressed mood, attention and memory problems, excessive daytime sleepiness, more nighttime falls and use more over-the-counter or prescription sleep aids. In addition, recent studies associate lack of sleep with serious health problems such as an increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080401081930.htm