What Happens When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep was reported by Robert Roy Britt for Elemental/Medium, 31 May 2019. This will convince you to get more sleep!
People who sleep less than seven hours a night have 40 to 60% lower levels of three molecules that are thought to play a key role in blood vessel health, according to a new study published in the journal Experimental Physiology. The molecules, called microRNAs, suppress gene expression of proteins in cells and have previously been linked to inflammation and poor blood vessel health.
In a separate study, DeSouza and colleagues found discouraging health signs in men who sleep just six hours a night. The cells that line their blood vessels were dysfunctional, and their arteries didn’t dilate and constrict as well as men who sleep a longer amount of time.
In another, more robust study from earlier this year, a separate research team found that people who sleep less than six hours a night are at a 27% greater risk of having atherosclerosis, or clogged arteries, throughout their bodies, compared with people who get seven or eight hours. Atherosclerosis is the accumulation of fatty deposits, called plaque, in blood vessels that block blood flow and can break off and cause heart attacks or strokes. Likewise, people who tossed and turned and woke up frequently during the night were 34% more likely to have atherosclerosis. The study was detailed in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Read more: What Happens When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep
Coffee, Even a Lot, Linked to Longer Life was reported by Robert Roy Britt for Elemental/Medium, 6 June, 2019.
Coffee is powerful stuff. Researchers discovered earlier this year that just a whiff is enough to increase the body’s arousal levels, helping jonsers wake up and feel focused. Yet purported links to cancer, poor heart health, and shorter lives have percolated for decades. Now, better-brewed studies are debunking the previous bad news and linking coffee — even several cups a day — to specific health benefits and longer life.
One new study revealed that, contrary to prior research, drinking coffee isn’t thought to stiffen the arteries, which can force the heart to work harder and lead to a heart attack or stroke.
A separate study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine last year, which relied on the same dataset used by Fung’s team, “suggests a lower risk of death was associated with drinking more coffee, including among coffee drinkers who have eight or more cups per day.”
A 2017 review of 201 coffee studies and 17 clinical trials, published in The BMJ, found coffee was “associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver cancer, as well as diabetes, gallstones, and gout.” Above that, the researchers discovered positive effects on brain health: Coffee consumption was linked to a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Read more: Coffee, Even a Lot, Linked to Longer Life
Why Gulping Down a Cold Drink Feels So Rewarding was written by Veronique Greenwood for Trilobytes in The New York Times, 31 May 2019. In a study of mice, researchers found no links between the neural systems related to reward and monitoring water intake.
That pleasing sensation of gulping down a glass of cold water isn’t actually linked to your real need for a drink. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Neuron, a group of scientists who have studied how thirst works in the bodies of mammals report that the neural systems related to the feeling of reward work independently of those involved in monitoring water intake.
Hydration by itself isn’t rewarding. Still, that blissful feeling that comes with a cold glass of water is very real.
“What we think is that maybe dopamine release is coupled with drinking behavior itself,” said Dr. Yuki Oka, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology. Maybe it is a learned behavior, he added. Your whole life, you have been drinking water, and that may have been reinforced by the release of dopamine, rather than the hydration itself being rewarding.
“Satiation from gulping is a really physical feeling. But we think that probably the pleasure is coming from the realization that you are drinking something,” he said.
The sleep findings are so upsetting to me. I have great difficulty sleeping and it just does not seem to be getting better. It is likely my worst health indicator today and with three autoimmune diseases that is saying a lot.
I get to keep trying.
this is very informative thanks for sharing
thanks for sharing it was very informitive