You may literally have to add it to your to-do list, but scheduling a good night’s sleep could be one of the smartest health priorities you set. It’s not just daytime drowsiness you risk when shortchanging yourself on your seven to eight hours. Possible health consequences of getting too little or poor sleep can involve the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune and nervous systems. In addition to letting life get in the way of good sleep, between 50 and 70 million Americans suffer from a chronic sleep disorder—insomnia or sleep apnea, say—that affects daily functioning and impinges on health. Consider the research:

1) Less may mean more. For people who sleep under seven hours a night, the fewer zzzz’s they get, the more obese they tend to be, according to a 2006 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report. This may relate to the discovery that insufficient sleep appears to tip hunger hormones out of whack. Leptin, which suppresses appetite, is lowered; ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, gets a boost.

2) You’re more apt to make bad food choices. A study published in the October 15, 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that people with obstructive sleep apnea or other severely disordered breathing while asleep ate a diet higher in cholesterol, protein, total fat, and total saturated fat. Women were especially affected.

3) Diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance, its precursor, may become more likely. A 2005 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that people getting five or fewer hours of sleep each night were 2.5 times more likely to be diabetic, while those with six hours or fewer were 1.7 times more likely.

4) The ticker is put at risk. A 2003 study found that heart attacks were 45 percent more likely in women who slept for five or fewer hours per night than in those who got more.

5) Blood pressure may increase. Obstructive sleep apnea, for example, has been associated with chronically elevated daytime blood pressure, and the more severe the disorder, the more significant the hypertension, suggests the 2006 IOM report. Obesity plays a role in both disorders, so losing weight can ease associated health risks.

6) Auto accidents rise. As stated in a 2007 report in the New England Journal of Medicine, nearly 20 percent of serious car crash injuries involve a sleepy driver—and that’s independent of alcohol use.

7) Balance is off. Older folks who have trouble getting to sleep, who wake up at night, or are drowsy during the day could be 2 to 4.5 times more likely to sustain a fall, found a 2007 study in the Journal of Gerontology.

You may be more prone to depression. Adults who chronically operate on fumes report more mental distress, depression, and alcohol use. Adolescents suffer, too: One survey of high school students found similarly high rates of these issues. Middle schoolers, too, report more symptoms of depression and lower self-esteem.

9) Kids may suffer more behavior problems. Research from an April issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found that children who are plagued by insomnia, short duration of sleeping, or disordered breathing with obesity, for example, are more likely to have behavioral issues like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

10) Death’s doorstep may be nearer. According to three large studies published in the journals Sleep and the Archives of General Psychiatry, people over age 30 who slept five hours or less per night had approximately a 15 percent greater risk of dying—regardless of the cause—over the periods studied, which ranged from six to 14 years.

Antioxidant-rich extracts from green tea may reduce the effects of oxidative stress caused by breathing problems while people are sleeping, according to US researchers.

As such, people with this disorder are said to be at risk of oxidative stress and exhibit changes in their brain tissue in areas involved in learning and memory.

Supplements of green tea extracts may counter the cognitive deficits that may occur, suggests a new study with rats, published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

If the results of the study can be repeated in humans, green tea and its extracts may offer a potential interventional strategy for people with the disorder, reported to be in the region of 12 million or so people in the US, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“OSA has been increasingly recognized as a serious and frequent health condition with potential long-term morbidities that include learning and psychological disabilities,” wrote lead researcher David Gozal from the University of Louisville.

Study details

Human OSA was modelled in rats by intermittently depriving the animals of oxygen during 12-hour “night” cycles for 14 days - intermittent hypoxia (IH). The researchers divided the 106 male rats into two groups, with one group assigned to receive drinking water containing green tea polyphenols.

The University of Louisville researchers, in collaboration with scientists from Soroka University Medical Center, then tested the animals for markers of inflammation and oxidative stress, in addition to using a water maze to test their performance in spatial learning and memory tasks.

They report that rats that received the green tea polyphenol (GTP)-supplemented water performed significantly better in a water maze than the rats that drank plain water.

Moreover, levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), a reactive carbonyl compound and a well-established marker of oxidative stress, were 40 per cent lower in the GTP-supplemented animals, added the researchers.

“GTP-[supplemented] rats exposed to IH displayed significantly greater spatial bias for the previous hidden platform position, indicating that GTPs are capable of attenuating IH-induced spatial learning deficits,” wrote Gozal.

“Because oxidative processes underlie neurocognitive deficits associated with IH, the potential therapeutic role of GTP in sleep-disordered breathing deserves further exploration,” he added.

Antioxidant activity

The benefits of the green tea extracts were attributed to the antioxidant properties of green tea polyphenols. “Recent studies have demonstrated the neuroprotective activity of GTP in animal models of neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease,” wrote Gozal.

Green tea is said to contain over four times the concentration of antioxidant catechins than black tea (green tea leaves that have been oxidized by fermentation), about 70 mg catechins per 100 mL compared to 15 mg per 100 mL for black tea.

The four primary polyphenols found in fresh tealeaves are epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and epicatechin.

Source: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
Volume 177, Pages 1135-1141, doi:10.1164/rccm.200701-110OC
“Green Tea Catechin Polyphenols Attenuate Behavioral and Oxidative Responses to Intermittent Hypoxia”
Authors: I.C. Burckhardt, D. Gozal, E. Dayyat, Y. Cheng, R.C. Li, A.D. Goldbart, B.W. Row

Supplements of L-carnitine improved total muscle mass and boosted cognitive performance among a group of centenarians in Italy, reports a new study.

L-Carnitine plays an important role in the production of cellular energy, and is also necessary for the transport of long-chain fatty acids like the omega-3 fatty acids across the membrane of mitochondria, the cell’s power stations.

“Among all the substances whose concentration decreases with age, L-carnitine diminution is fundamentally important, given its function in the production of energy,” explained the authors.

The researchers recruited 66 men and women with an average age of 101 to take part in the study. The subjects, showing signs of fatigue after only slight physical activity, were randomly assigned to receive either the daily L-carnitine supplement (two grams, from Sigma Tau) or placebo for six months.

At the end of the study, the researchers report that the supplementation with L-carnitine was associated with significant reductions in fat mass, compared to placebo. Indeed, the active supplement group lost 1.6 kg of fat mass, while the placebo group gained 0.6 kg.

Total muscle mass in the L-carnitine-supplemented group increased by three kilograms more than the placebo group, report the researchers. Moreover, measurements of fatigue, obtained from a six-minute walking corridor test, decreased after L-carnitine supplementation.

Cognitive performance, measured using the 30-point Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), showed increases of 4.1 points for the L-carnitine group, compared to only 0.6 points on average for the placebo group.

Reductions in mental fatigue were also associated with L-carnitine supplementation.

The researchers noted several limitations with their study including using subjects who displayed signs of mild cognitive deficit, having bad eyesight, hearing or who were illiterate. They also note that the subjects were assisted by someone at all times.

Despite such limitations, they concluded that the administration of the supplement did produce benefits related to physical and mental performance among a population at great risk of such declines.

When it comes to health, berries have a fabulous reputation. Blueberries are packed with antioxidants, called anthocyanins, that may help keep memory sharp as you age, and raspberries contain ellagic acid, a compound with anti-cancer properties. All berries are great sources of fiber, a nutrient important for a healthy digestive system. But if you need more reasons to dig into summer’s sun-kissed little fruits, look no further than two new studies, which suggest that berries may be good for your heart and your bones as well.

In a study of 72 middle-age people published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, eating just under a cup of mixed berries daily for eight weeks was associated with increased levels of “good” HDL cholesterol and lowered blood pressure, two positives when it comes to heart health. Included in the mix were strawberries, red raspberries and bilberries—similar to blueberries—as well as other berries more common in Finland (where the research was conducted): black currants, lingonberries and choke berries.

“At the moment we do not know which berry, or berries, could have been the most active,” says Iris Erlund, Ph.D., senior researcher at the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki and lead author of the study. But, in fact, the diverse range of polyphenols—a broad class of health-promoting plant compounds that includes anthocyanins and ellagic acid—provided by the mix of berries is likely responsible for the observed benefits. Polyphenols may increase levels of nitric oxide, a molecule that produces a number of heart-healthy effects. One is helping to relax blood vessels, which subsequently results in lowered blood pressure, says Erlund.

Polyphenols may also help preserve bone density after menopause, according to new research in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. Our bones are constantly “turning over”—breaking down and building back up. After menopause, when estrogen levels plummet, bone breakdown outpaces bone formation, and the result is bone loss, a risk factor for osteoporosis. In the study, rats that had their ovaries removed (to mimic an estrogen-deprived postmenopausal state) and were fed blueberries every day for three months significantly increased their bone density, scientists at Florida Study University discovered. “We believe that polyphenols in the berries slowed the rate [of bone turnover], ultimately saving bone,” says Bahram Arjmandi, Ph.D., R.D., the study’s lead author and professor and chair of the department of nutrition, food and exercise sciences at FSU. More research is needed to know for sure whether the benefits translate to humans but, says Arjmandi, the data suggest that eating even a small amount of blueberries each day—perhaps as little as 1⁄4 cup—could be good for anyone’s bones.

Bottom line: Dig into a variety of berries regularly to reap the “total body” benefits of their polyphenols.

 

Long term supplementation of antioxidant-rich apples and purple grapes, particularly in juice form, may prevent artery hardening, researchers from France have reported for the first time.

“The present results clearly show for the first time that apple and purple grape prevent diet-induced atherosclerosis in hamsters, and that the fruit processing can have a major impact on the potential health benefits of fruit in pathological conditions,” wrote the researchers, led by Jean-Max Rouanet.

“These findings, therefore, provide encouragement that fruit and fruit juices may have a significant clinical and public health relevance.”

Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), which causes almost 50 per cent of deaths in Europe, and is reported to cost the EU economy about €169bn ($202bn) per year.

New data

Rouanet and co-workers took 40 male Syrian golden hamsters and randomly divided them into five groups. The animals were fed a diet to promote the development of artery hardening, and supplemented with mashed apple or purple grape, or the same volume of apple juice or purple grape juice, or water (control group) for 12 weeks.

At the end of the study, they found that total cholesterol levels were significantly reduced in the animals fed the fruit-supplemented diets, by 11 per cent in apple group and 24 per cent in the apple juice group, and 30 per cent in the purple grape and 34 per cent in the purple grape juice group. This was attributed to the reductions in levels of non-HDL cholesterol.

The juices also outperformed the fruit for protecting against atherosclerosis, measured by the aortic fatty streak lesion area or AFSA. This value was reduced by 93 and 78 per cent for the purple grape juice and the fruit, respectively, and by 60 and 48 per cent for apple juice and apple, respectively.

“The results show for the first time that long-term consumption of antioxidants supplied by apple and purple grape, especially phenolic compounds, prevents the development of atherosclerosis in hamsters, and that processing can have a major impact on the potential health benefits of a product,” stated the researchers.

Mechanism of protection

Commenting on the underlying mechanism, Rouanet and co-workers stated that the greater potency of the purple grape and its juice may be due to the flavonoids content

“Flavonoids, especially anthocyanins and catechins in purple grape and purple grape juice, generally have more hydroxyl groups than phenolic acids found in apple and apple juice,” wrote the authors. “This could explain why purple grape juice and purple grape displayed a better efficacy than apple and apple juice against early atherosclerosis.

“Nevertheless, these beneficial effects cannot only be attributed to their phenolic contents, but to the result of the action of different antioxidant compounds present in the fruits (vitamin C, carotenoids, polyphenols) and to possible synergistic and antagonist effects still unknown,” they added.

Source:  Molecular Nutrition & Food Research
2008, Volume 52, Pages 400-407, doi: 10.1002/mnfr.200700141
“Phenolics from purple grape, apple, purple grape juice and apple juice prevent early atherosclerosis induced by an atherogenic diet in hamsters”

“We used a combination of different berries, instead of only one berry type, to ensure a high intake of various polyphenols and to minimize the intake of other bioactive components obtained from the individual berry types,” wrote lead author Iris Erlund from the Department of Health and Functional Capacity and the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki.

“According to the intake and bioavailability data obtained in this study, polyphenols and vitamin C are the most likely berry constituents to exert effects in vivo after the consumption of berries,” she added.

The study adds to an ever-growing number of reports in the literature linking berry consumption to a range of health benefits, including lowering LDL cholesterol levels, and protecting against cancer and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

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