Health and fitness briefs: Lack of sleep affects health in several ways Health Tips

Health and fitness briefs: Lack of sleep affects health in several ways

Scientists say that sleep affects everything from appetite — surprise! — to grades — no surprise!

Did you know that your sleep habits can make you crave French fries? Or hurt your grades? Apparently, sleep — or the lack of it — leaves its mark on us in more ways than we realize, according to scientists at an international sleep conference in Minneapolis.

More than 5,000 people gathered to talk about sleep and share more than 1,000 scientific studies at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine at the Minneapolis Convention Center recently.

A common theme: our collective struggle to get a good night’s sleep.

“It’s been overlooked for so long, and (it’s) such a major problem,” says Dr. David Kuhlmann, a sleep specialist from Sedalia, Mo. “It’s not just sleepy drivers. It’s (the) impact on overall health.”

At Harvard University, for example, researchers found that people are more likely to give in to temptation and eat high-calorie foods when they’re sleepy.

“A lot of us kind of knew that (from college),” said William Killgore, an assistant professor of psychology. “You want to eat a little extra carbs to keep going.”

But his team discovered that something happens in the brains of sleepy people when they’re shown pictures of ice cream, hamburgers and other fatty foods. The “braking system” in the brain, which normally tells them to resist such foods, “starts shutting down,” he said. “And the more likely they are to reach out for something to eat.”

Another study, done at the University of Michigan, compared the grade-point averages of 201 college students. No surprise, they found the ones who were sleepiest during the day had the lowest GPAs.

One study, from Paris, was titled, “Paraplegics walk in their dreams.”

The scientists found that sleep, for those who had lost the ability to walk, provided a brief escape from confinement.

A silent killer

The hepatitis C virus, which affects nearly 4 million Americans, can cause serious liver disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer, though most people who are infected don’t even know it.

The biggest group consists of baby boomers who might have been infected decades ago either through blood transfusions, sex, intravenous drug use or hemophilia medications.

Because hepatitis C can lie dormant for so long without any detectable symptoms, doctors say all adults should be screened at least once for the virus just to make sure they don’t have it.

“Hepatitis C is a neglected disease in the United States that is killing thousands,” said Dr. Norman Gitlin, an Atlanta liver specialist.

Gitlin said that of the 4 million Americans with hepatitis C, only about 800,000, or 20 percent, have been identified or offered treatment.

The reason for that is two-fold, he said. One is the public is woefully unaware of the virus and two, most people don’t have symptoms.

Gitlin said that in addition to blood transfusions and IV drug use, people who snort cocaine through a straw, get body piercings and tattoos are most at risk of contracting the virus.

“Those five risk factors account for 80 percent of people who get hepatitis C,” he said. “Ten percent of people are doctors and nurses or paramedics who get it from accidental needle sticks; and 10 percent we can’t find a cause.”

Although there is no vaccine against hepatitis C, Gitlin said the disease is curable. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration recently approved two new oral medications — Incivek and Victrelis — that significantly enhance the success rate in treating the virus and in some instances have even shortened the treatment duration.

“The other side of the coin is it accounts for 54 percent of all liver transplants in the country,” Gitlin said. “So you need to be identified and treated before it progresses to late-stage disease.”

Virtual Health Center