Heath news from the past week: Too much napping may mean dementia, the benefits of alternative sweeteners, and more.
Excessive napping could be a sign of dementia
Frequent napping or regularly napping for extended periods during the day may be a sign of early dementia in older adults, a new study revealed.
Elderly adults who napped at least once a day or more than an hour a day were 40% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who did not nap daily or napped less than an hour a day, according to the study published Thursday in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Read more about the association between excessive napping and dementia here:
Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic
The number of deaths in the US involving alcohol jumped 25.5% between 2019 and 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to research published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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This is a sharp incline from prior years; the average annual percent increase in deaths involving alcohol was 2.2% between 1999 and 2017.
There were 78,927 alcohol-related deaths in the US in 2019 and 99,017 in 2020. These deaths also included motor vehicle crashes that happened as a result of driving under the influence of alcohol. Read more facts and figures here:
Ways to help someone with an eating disorder
If you think or know a loved one has an eating disorder, supporting that person can be game-changing for them.
Eating disorders affect at least 9% of the world population, which includes around 30 million Americans. More than 10,000 people die from eating disorders every year, and that’s just in the United States. And the pandemic has led to an increase in the number and severity of cases, according to a January study published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry. Read how you can help, including knowing the signs, here:
Alternative sweeteners can help with weight and diabetes risk
In our soda, tea, coffee and juice: We like to drink sugar.
Americans eat about 60 pounds (27 kilograms) of sugar annually on average — and almost half of that comes from drinks, according to the American Heart Association.
For people who are at risk for or have diabetes, drinks sweetened without sugar may help, according to a study published Monday. Check out the study here:
Having trouble sleeping? Check this out
Sleeping for only one night with a dim light, such as a TV set with the sound off, raised the blood sugar and heart rate of healthy young people participating in a sleep lab experiment, a new study found.
What are your sleep myths and facts? You know, the things you are absolutely sure you should do — and not do — to get a good night’s sleep. Studies show that most of us are practicing bad sleep habits without knowing it — which can lead to serious health consequences. How do your beliefs about sleep stack up?
Check out more of the past week’s health news:
5 sleep myths that may be keeping you from a good night’s rest
Myth or fact? If you lie in bed long enough, you’ll fall asleep
Myth. When it comes to sleep no-nos, experts say this is a big one. Lying in bed, even with your eyes closed, for more than 15 to 20 minutes is one of the worst things you can do because it will train your brain to associate the bed with a lack of sleep. It can lead to chronic insomnia, Michael Grandner, a clinical psychologist and sleep expert, told CNN in an earlier interview.
“It’s counterintuitive, but spending time in bed awake turns the bed into the dentist’s chair,” said Grandner, who directs the sleep and heath research program at the University of Arizona and the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona.
“You want the bed to be like your favorite restaurant, where you walk in and you start getting hungry, even if you just recently ate,” he added. “You want the bed to do that for sleep.”
Myth or fact? You shouldn’t check your smartphone if you wake in the night
That’s a fact. Banning smartphones (or any electrical device that emits blue light) from the bedroom an hour or so before bed and all through the night is a must for good slumber, experts say. Light tells the body to stop producing melatonin, the body’s natural sleep aid, and studies have shown that blue light is especially toxic to sleep.
So when you get out of bed after 20 minutes of sleeplessness, avoid bright light, watching TV or checking social media. Instead, keep the lights dim and do something mindless, such as folding socks. Better yet, try doing one of these tricks to relax your mind and ready yourself for sleep.
Sleep myths that may be keeping you from a good night’s rest
Studies show that most people practice bad sleep habits without knowing it.
Myth or fact: Exercising in the evening will disrupt sleep
That’s a myth that used to be a fact “in the olden days,” Dasgupta said.
“Now the data shows that exercise at any time is better than not exercising due to all the medical benefits, and it helps with stress reduction, which aids sleep,” he said. “The data about not exercising at night is when you’re doing extreme workouts like Olympic athlete-type exercises.”
People who exercised for 35 minutes right before bed slept as well as they did on nights when they didn’t exercise at all, a 2011 study found. If working out at night does affect your sleep, experts suggest exercising early in the evening so your heart rate and body temperature can return to normal before you hit the hay.
“If you ask me when’s the perfect time to exercise, I think it’s gonna be in the morning and outside in daylight. It resets the circadian rhythm and starts the day off with vigor,” Dasgupta said. “But if nighttime exercise is best for you, that’s fine.”
Myth or fact? You can catch up on sleep on the weekends
Who doesn’t believe this one? Sadly, the science says we’re wrong. We may feel better after sleeping in on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but it will be to the detriment of our overall sleep health, experts say. By changing your wake-up time and bedtime on weekends (or day to day), your sleep rhythms aren’t predictable, which can alter the body’s circadian rhythm.
“You want to build a reliable rhythm, much like the drummer counting the beat for the band,” Grandner said. “By controlling when you wake up and go to bed, you’re setting the beat.”
Overcome this myth by going to bed and getting up at the same time each day, even on weekends, vacations or after a night of poor sleep.
“The brain likes regularity and predictability,” he added. “Waking up at the same time every day and then adding light and movement as soon as you wake up will set your other rhythms for the day and give you increased energy and mood.”