Sleepless Dangers

Erratic shift work compounds the problem, and 1 in 10 transportation workers toils while drowsy.

One in 10 American truck drivers, train conductors, airline pilots and other transportation workers may be dangerously sleep-deprived, a new survey suggests.

Many said they feel drowsy while working, and some worry that their fatigue poses a threat to commuter safety, the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) poll found.

As many as 11 percent of these employees work while sleepy, compared to 7 percent of non-transportation workers.

“It is exciting ...

Not getting enough sleep may lead to weight gain over time, researchers say.

The team at Uppsala University in Sweden used functional MRI to observe the brains of 12 normal weight males while they looked at images of food. This was done on two occasions — after a night of normal sleep and after a night without sleep.

The results showed that a specific brain region that plays a role in appetite shows more activation in response to food images after a ...

Sleep problems are common among police officers and are associated with more health issues and poorer performance on the job, a new study shows.

Researchers screened almost 5,000 police officers from the United States and Canada online or in person and found that 40 percent of them had a sleep disorder.

The most common problem, suffered by one-third of the officers, was obstructive sleep apnea, which occurs when muscle tissue in the back of the throat relaxes and collapses, temporarily blocking the ...

Getting less than 6 hours increases risk of chronic fatigue, obesity and diabetes, researchers say.

Police officers who get less than six hours of sleep per day are at increased risk for chronic fatigue and health problems such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease, a new study finds.

The University of Iowa researchers also found that officers working the evening or night shifts were 14 times less likely to get restful sleep than those on the day shift. These officers also had ...

Sleep is important for overall rest and well-being, but a new study shows it might also impact a man’s fertility.

The value of a good night’s sleep cannot be overstated, especially in today’s hectic society. Research has shown that most Americans aren’t getting enough rest, even when it comes to teenagers and kids. Now, a new study finds that chronic sleep issues might actually lead to fertility problems down the road.

Danish researchers examined over 950 men over the course of three ...

Sleep and alcohol use are firmly intertwined. We know that 30% of people with insomnia turn to alcohol to help them sleep. We also know that insomnia is one of the greatest predictors of relapse in alcoholics. So what is the problem with alcohol and sleep?

Initially, alcohol induces sleep. It does this by acting on areas of the brain in a fashion similar to sleeping pills. In the first half of the night it increases ...

We all complain about losing an hour of sleep when spring comes around, although we enjoy the days staying light longer. Of course, which of us actually get 8 hours of sleep every night anyway, right? So what is the big deal about daylight savings time? The dangers may be more than you imagined – there is a big difference between losing an hour of sleep and actually losing an hour.

All creatures have biological cycles including humans – these cycles ...

A new study published in an online supplement of the medical journal “Sleep” found that for every one-hour increase in sleep duration there was a 72 percent decrease in the likelihood of suicide risk in people with insomnia. Says primary author Linda Oliver, MA, clinical research coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania Behavioral Sleep Medicine Research Program in Philadelphia: “We were surprised by the strength of the association between sleep duration and suicide risk.”

I’m not at all surprised by those ...

Untreated sleep apnea can lead to daytime sleepiness, presenting danger at the wheel, according to preliminary research.

People with sleep apnea are dangers on the road, according to new research presented at the 2013 Sleep and Breathing Conference in Berlin. The findings suggest that people with untreated sleep apnea are more likely to nod off while driving and more likely to fail driving simulator tests than people without sleep apnea.

Meir Kryger, MD, professor of pulmonary medicine at the Yale School of ...

In this month’s British Medical Journal, there’s a report on a study demonstrating the relationship of sleep to brain development in kids. It is called the Millennium cohort Study, and it followed 11000 children. Those children who demonstrated irregular bedtimes up to the age of three were the most negatively affected when it came to reading, math skills and spatial awareness. When followed over time, they continued to lag developmentally even by the age of seven — and girls more ...