Health & Fitness

03/21/20

Baby boomers are used to embracing grandparenting head on. Some of us have moved across the country to be with our grandchildren; others regularly bridge distances via FaceTime and Skype; many take pride in kayaking, rock climbing, jumping on trampolines, and doing yoga with our grandkids. Before the new coronavirus and COVID-19 came along, many grandparents were confident we could do it all. The threats posed by this new virus are humbling and present new conundrums. As schools and daycares temporarily close, many grandparents are wrestling with questions surrounding whether they can safely spend time with their grandchildren, and possibly help their adult children with childcare.

Is it safe to spend time with my grandchildren right now?

COVID-19 affects older people more severely than younger people — and children are notorious for spreading germs, notes Claire McCarthy, MD, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital and faculty editor for Harvard Health Publishing.

“To be safe, grandparents really shouldn’t be doing childcare,” says Dr. McCarthy. “Even if the child is a baby who doesn’t go out into the world much at all, it’s impossible to be sure that the baby’s parents won’t bring anything home. As sad as it is, older adults are the ones who really need to isolate themselves. In a time of crisis, it’s natural to want to be with family and help them, but in this particular crisis families need to think differently — and keep grandparents safe.”

(See the Coronavirus Resource Center for information on how the virus spreads, how to protect yourself, and who is at highest risk for serious illness.)

Staying connected and helping families

Given current public health recommendations to practice social distancing — even with beloved grandchildren — many grandparents are grappling with two questions. What can I do to stay connected with my grandchildren? How can I help their parents, who may be working from home and trying to cope with their children being home from school?

Ways to stay connected to your grandchildren

Long-distance grandparents often become incredibly skilled and creative with FaceTime, Skype, and other ways of connecting face-to-face. Those who haven’t yet developed these skills can begin building them now. Guided by the age of your grandchildren, their interests, and the nature of your relationship, you can establish a daily meet-up online to read books, play games, or do activities.

Simply calling to chat will get old quickly. Right now the children are home from school or daycare, and missing so much of their daily routines and activities. So, step in with “Nana Academy” or “Granpa Games.” You may begin to teach a young child to recognize the letters of the alphabet, or create interesting history lessons for an older child. Show off dance steps or favorite songs from your youth and have them share theirs. Again, be guided initially by your grandchild’s interests and your own. Start with small, sure-fire activities and expand when you can. Once you get started, you are likely to discover a vast number of possibilities.
If you have grandchildren living in more than one family, try creating a daily or weekly “cousins’ time.” Depending on ages, you can read all of them a story, or encourage the older ones, already readers, to read to younger siblings and cousins. Cousins’ time could also be an opportunity for you to share stories, perhaps from their parents’ childhoods. Or you might tell stories about it was like to live in a time before Velcro and microwaves, let alone iPhones and FaceTime.
Break bread together. One woman I know cooks for her adult daughter, drops the food off at a safe distance outside, then goes home to get online for a virtual meal with her daughter and grandchildren.
Ask children what they do and don’t like about their new routines, and talk together about what each person might like to look forward to. Life may not return to normal for children soon, and not knowing how long this difficult stretch will last is part of the hardship. But hopefully one day, many important aspects of our lives will resume.

How can I help my children?

Many adult children are struggling to balance work and homeschooling. Others may need a break from 24/7 childrearing. You could help by:

Freeing up time for parents. You may decide to video chat regularly with your grandchildren, so that you can remain connected with them, but remember that your efforts will also be helping their parents. Spending a half-hour or more engaging with them daily will free up some time for the parents, and reassure them that responsibility for their children’s education and well-being during this time is not all on their shoulders.
Considering financial help. This crisis will cost all of us financially, but will hurt some more than others. To the extent you can help and to the extent your adult kids could use your financial help, this is a way you can be there for them. It may come in the form of large cash gifts, although most of us cannot make that sort of contribution. Offering to pay for an activity or send a grandchild to camp for a week or two (assuming this becomes possible) gives the child something to look forward to, grandparent and grandchild something to anticipate together, and eases finances a bit for the parents.
Inviting grandchildren to plan virtual celebrations and holidays with you. If a birthday is approaching, you and your grandchild might go online to find something special that can be delivered to the child’s home and opened “together.” And with Easter and Passover on the horizon, you may be able to dye Easter eggs together, and you can surely talk about the 10 — now 11 — plagues in a very real way.

We grandparents take a lot of pride in the energy, youthfulness, creativity, and love that we offer our grandchildren. COVID-19 may temporarily alter the format of our relationships with our grandchildren. This is humbling but it need not be crippling. Whether via FaceTime or Zoom or even old-fashioned telephone, there remain all sorts of meaningful and joyful ways that we can be with our grandchildren despite any distance between us.

For more information on coronavirus and COVID-19, see the Harvard Health Publishing Coronavirus Resource Center.

The post Grandparenting in the time of COVID-19 appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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Coronavirus SARS-CoV2: BESSY II data accelerate drug development

A coronavirus is threatening human health. SARS-CoV-2 is highly infectious and can cause severe pneumonia (COVID-19). A team has now found a promising approach to understanding the virus. Using the high-intensity X-ray light from the Berlin synchrotron source BESSY II, they have decoded the 3D architecture of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2. This protein plays a central role in the reproduction of the virus.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2UpwjL4

How the brain controls the voice

A particular neuronal circuit in the brains of bats controls their vocalizations. Based on the rhythm with which the circuit oscillated, researchers were able to predict the kind of sounds the bats were about to make. These research results could contribute to a better understanding of human diseases in which language is impaired such as Parkinson's or Tourette syndrome.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2xiSOcs

Device could 'hear' disease through structures housing cells

Device brings silicon computing power to brain research and prosthetics

The Impact of Effective Handwashing Against Infection

Drug resistant infections are on the rise, the novel coronavirus COVID-19 is spreading rapidly and research has demonstrated you may be participating in activities that exacerbate the issue. Preventing the spread of contagious disease is the best option as there is no cure for viral infections and COVID-19 isn't a simple virus.

However, the key to prevention is to be smart about it. One of the primary ways is using proper handwashing techniques with safe products. Unfortunately, many still work under the assumption that antibacterial soap or hand sanitizer will get the job done safely and correctly. Yet even the FDA acknowledges antibacterial soaps haven’t been proven effective and they have potentially negative health effects.¹

The authors of one study² suggested hospital-based health care providers had a hand hygiene compliance rate of 70% to 72%. This means that at least 28% of the health care providers were not practicing safe handwashing techniques.

Yet, proper handwashing is especially important in the hospital where close contact among patients is common. Critically ill patients are especially susceptible to the risks introduced in hospital environments. The results of one study suggested that using a patient hand hygiene protocol reduced infection rates.³

Washing your hands helps remove harmful bacteria that may contaminate your immediate surroundings. It also stops the spread of infection and reduces the chances that germs may be transferred to your internal systems when you touch your nose, mouth or eyes.⁴

By learning to use proper handwashing techniques you and others may reduce the number of people who get a diarrheal illness by at least 23% and you can contribute to reducing respiratory infections by up to 21%.

Immediate Disease Prevention Strategy — Proper Handwashing

In the past decade there's been a rapid emergence of resistant bacteria; this has rather quickly risen to the level of a crisis. The overuse and misuse of antibiotic medications has accelerated what is supposed to be a natural process.⁵

Antibiotic resistance has made it more difficult to treat diseases such as gonorrhea, tuberculosis and pneumonia — one of the secondary infections occurring in individuals with COVID-19. The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today. It can affect anyone and leads to higher medical costs and mortality rates.

Yet, the simple act of handwashing may help reduce the potential for infection. In a unique study designed by the U.S. military, the Navy studied incoming recruits to evaluate the rate of respiratory illnesses. By the early 2000s, respiratory illnesses had become the most common cause of lost duty time.^6,⁷

In the past, the military used ultraviolet lights, vaccines and disinfectant vapors to help reduce the number of lost hours. In this study, recruits were ordered to wash their hands five times a day and drill instructors underwent monthly education on the importance of handwashing.

After just two years, recruits had a 45% reduced rate of respiratory illnesses than the recruits from the year before the program began. The simple act of washing their hands consistently and appropriately had nearly halved the number of recruits who developed a respiratory illness.

While recent news reports have said a review of multiple studies showed that handwashing can reduce respiratory illness risks by as much as 54%, none of the news agencies has linked directly to the source. According to a 2019 study, the reality of measuring implementation has challenges:⁸

“Most previous efficacy studies reporting the impact of intense implementation of hygiene behavior change on respiratory illness have been small, involving up to 6,000 people … however, the impact of implementing hygiene promotion programs on respiratory illness on a large scale is still unclear.”

The reason for this, the authors explain, is that:

“Accurately assessing handwashing behaviors is problematic. Direct observation of handwashing by trained staff is both highly resource intensive and also biased, as the presence of an observer alters the handwashing behavior.

Assessment of handwashing behavior through a low-cost proxy measure such as presence of soap and water in a designated handwashing station is a practical alternative and has been associated with lower rates of respiratory illness in some settings, but not in others.”

The bottom line is, research does show that diligently washing your hands helps stave off infections, including respiratory illnesses. So, the best thing to do is be sure to follow the CDC’s advice and make good handwashing a regular practice.

Step-by-Step: How to Effectively Wash Your Hands

To enjoy the greatest benefit, handwashing must be done effectively and correctly as demonstrated in this short video. This probably sounds obvious! Yet, one study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found 97% of the time consumers were not washing their hands correctly.⁹

Said another way, only 3% were using the correct handwashing technique to prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses. The following are times that are especially important to wash your hands:

When your hands are visibly soiled	After coming in from the outside
Often during cold and flu season	Before sitting down to eat
After coughing or sneezing	Before and after visiting or caring for sick people
After playing with children or handling children's toys	After handling garbage, using the phone or shaking hands
After touching your pet, animal waste, pet food or treats	After going to the bathroom or changing a diaper
Before and after handling food, being especially careful with raw eggs, meat, seafood and poultry	After coming home from the grocery store, school, mall or church

To be truly effective you must wash for at least 20 seconds, address all aspects of your hands, use soap and running water and dry your hands appropriately. Consider using these strategies in your approach to wash your hands:

• Use warm, running water and a mild soap. You do NOT need antibacterial soap. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has stated,¹⁰ “ … there isn’t enough science to show that over-the-counter (OTC) antibacterial soaps are better at preventing illness than washing with plain soap and water.

To date, the benefits of using antibacterial hand soap haven’t been proven. In addition, the wide use of these products over a long time has raised the question of potential negative effects on your health.”

• Start with wet hands, add soap and work up a good lather, all the way up to your wrists, scrubbing for at least 20 seconds (most people only wash for about six seconds). A good way to time this is to sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice.

• Make sure you cover all surfaces, including the insides and backs of your hands, your wrists, your fingers and the areas between them and in around and below your fingernails. Wash your fingertips by clasping your hands, fingers to fingers and twisting your hands back and forth. This places friction against your fingertips. Next, scrub your fingertips over the palm of your hands to get the ends of your fingers.

• Rinse thoroughly under running water.

• Thoroughly dry your hands, ideally using a paper towel. Use a paper towel to shut off the sink and open the door at home when someone is ill to prevent the spread of germs. Do this regularly in public places.

How You Dry Your Hands Is Also Important

The next step is to dry your hands. If you're depositing more germs by using the wrong tool, you may not be as protected as you think. In one study¹¹ researchers demonstrated how hot air hand dryers in public restrooms spread bacteria; this was supported by previous research with similar findings.¹²

It turns out the warm moist air inside hot air dryers is the perfect place for bacteria and germs to grow. Researchers from Connecticut theorized the appliance intake brings in bacteria where colonies grow and are then dispersed when the appliances are used. The team concluded that:¹³

“ … potentially pathogenic bacteria, including bacterial spores, may travel between rooms, and subsequent bacterial/spore deposition by hand dryers is a possible mechanism for spread of infectious bacteria, including spores of potential pathogens if present.”

A bathroom towel is also not a great option since you transfer bacteria onto the surface each time you use it.¹⁴ A warm, damp bathroom is the perfect environment for bacteria and other microorganisms to thrive. Experts recommend if you keep towels in the kitchen or bathroom, they should be washed every two days.

Using a paper towel may be the best cleanliness option, but also has an impact on the environment. Each year the global market for paper towels reaches $12 billion, of which Americans spend $5.7 billion.¹⁵

Joe Smith of Oregon has a solution, as outlined in a TED Talk (link below). By using his system it's apparent we can reduce the amount of paper towels we use while still getting our hands dry.

There are two points to this. The first is to shake your hands in order to eliminate as much free water as possible. The second is the method he uses to fold a towel to increase absorbency by increasing interstitial spaces while reducing the amount of paper towel used.

Too Much Hand Washing Can Be Harmful

It’s important to find a balance between keeping hands clean and scrubbing so much you damage the skin barrier. Of course, you don't want to unnecessarily open yourself to disease-carrying germs, but exposure is inevitable.

Without proper hygiene you can't achieve optimal health, yet over-washing can irritate your skin and take away protective oils. This causes your skin to crack, potentially bleed and sometimes invite trouble.

Consider adding coconut oil as a moisturizer for your hands. Lauric acid makes up 40% of the fat in coconut oil, best known for its antibacterial, antimicrobial and antiviral properties. Coconut oil offers several additional benefits to your health and home.

Your First Line of Defense Resides in Your Gut

While handwashing is important to help prevent the spread of disease, your first line of defense against COVID-19 and other viral and bacterial pathogens is a strong immune system.

There are several steps you can take to support this and create a strong foundation to help your body fight off pathogens and reduce your risk for chronic diseases. The first step is to cut out sugar and avoid processed foods.

• Nutrition — Your body needs healthy amounts of protein found in lean meats, bone broth, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds to repair tissue and fight infection. Antioxidants in chaga tea can help with immunity because it's also packed with Beta D Glucan, a compound that increases macrophage killer cell efficiency.

• Vitamins and minerals — Eating foods rich in vitamins, including vitamins K1 and K2, zinc, selenium, quercetin and B vitamins support your immune system. Vitamin D plays a large part and may be found in limited quantities in raw grass fed milk, wild-caught Alaskan salmon and organic pastured eggs. The ideal way to optimize your Vitamin D level is through sensible sun exposure.

Vitamin C-rich foods include leafy greens, bell peppers, broccoli and citrus fruits. Vitamin A can help lower your risk of infection and support wound healing. Foods high in vitamin A include sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, wild-caught Alaskan salmon, organic pastured eggs and grass fed beef.

• Support your gut microbiome — One of the easiest and quickest ways to provide your gut with a diverse source of probiotic bacteria is to eat fermented vegetables. Other beneficial fermented foods include natto, kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut and raw yogurt made from the milk of grass fed cows.

Be sure to steer clear of yogurt with added sugar; this is found in most commercial varieties. Fiber-rich foods also help by promoting bowel movements, which keeps waste moving smoothly through your intestinal tract.

• Sleep — A lack of sleep will quickly impact your immune function and leave you vulnerable to environmental threats, including viruses and bacteria. Consistently sleeping less than six hours increases your risk for psychological and physical effects. For suggestions on improving your sleep hygiene, see “Top 33 Tips to Optimize Your Sleep Routine.”

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The Truth About Sleep

As a medical journalist for BBC in the U.K., Dr. Michael Mosley has put a number of different health strategies under the proverbial loupe, including the ketogenic diet, which I interviewed him about in 2014.

In this BBC program, “The Truth About Sleep,” which originally aired in 2017, Mosley investigates the health ramifications of insomnia, which is a problem he shares with many others in the world. In it, he reviews the hazards of sleep deprivation, and shares a variety of methods found to improve sleep quality and quantity.

About 70% of Britons feel they get less sleep than they need, and about a third report suffering from insomnia, Mosley says. His own problem has to do with staying asleep. While he has no problem falling asleep initially, he wakes up around 3 a.m. and has a hard time drifting off again. “I’m simply not getting enough sleep,” he says.

How Much Sleep Is Required for Health?

As noted by Mosley, the standard recommendation for adults is to get seven to eight hours of sleep per night. Teenagers need around nine hours, while younger school-age children may need upward of 11 hours.

While insomnia is one reason cited for lack of sleep, there are many other causes as well, including shift work and excessive partying. Our modern lifestyle, which glamorizes constant internet connectivity and round-the-clock activity, essentially conspires to keep us awake far longer than is healthy.

How can you tell if you’re actually sleep deprived or getting the “right” amount of sleep for you? Mosley demonstrates a test that can clue you in. It’s simple. Just go to bed in the middle of the afternoon and time how long it takes you to fall asleep. To conduct this sleep onset latency test, all you need is a watch, a metal spoon and a metal tray.

Place the metal tray next to your bed and lay down, holding the spoon in your hand so that when it falls, it will fall onto the tray. Relax. When you start falling asleep, the muscles in your hand will relax, causing the spoon to drop. The clanking will wake you up. Look at your watch. How long did it take you to drift off?

If it takes you more than 15 minutes, you’re getting enough sleep. If you fall asleep in less than 10 minutes, you’re moderately sleep deprived. Falling asleep in five minutes or less is indicative of severe sleep deprivation.

The High Cost of Sleep Deprivation

The price tag for sleep deprivation is steep. A bleary-eyed workforce costs the U.K. up to £40 billion (about $59 billion) a year in low productivity and absenteeism, Mosley notes. When asking random people on the street what keeps them up at night, the answers are manifold.

Many younger adults cite internet videos and social media. Working out in the evening, mental worries and a disruptive partner are other reasons people give for not getting enough shut-eye.

What Happens During Sleep?

Sleep is not just one long, solid state. Healthy sleep consists of several stages,¹ each stage lasting five to 15 minutes, with a complete cycle (light, deep and rapid eye movement or REM sleep) taking between 90 and 120 minutes.

A full sleep cycle starts out in light sleep and progresses through to deep sleep, then reverses back from deep to light sleep before entering REM. You cycle through each of these stages four to six times during the night, and this cycling is tremendously important, from both a biological and psychological perspective.

• Stages 1 and 2 (light sleep; non-REM) — During the initial stages of sleep, biological processes in your body slow down but your brain remains active as it begins the editing process where decisions are made about which memories to store and which to discard.

As noted by Mosley, you drift in and out of consciousness in stage 1, before ultimately entering stage 2, at which point your brainwaves slow down.

• Stages 3 and 4 (deep sleep; non-REM) — In these deeper sleep stages you enter into a near coma-like state, during which physiological cleansing and detoxification processes in the brain² take place.

Your brain cells actually shrink by about 60% during this deep sleep phase. This creates more space in-between the cells, giving your cerebrospinal fluid more space to flush out the debris. Before entering stage 5 REM sleep, you cycle back into stage 2.

• Stage 5 (REM) — During this last phase, you enter rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, where dreaming takes place. In this phase, your brain is as active as it is during wakefulness, but your body is paralyzed, which prevents you from acting out your dreams.

The frightening experience of sleep paralysis occurs when you awaken during this phase and find your body unresponsive. The “treatment” for this disorder is knowledge. You simply need to be educated about what’s happening so that you can calmly ride out the episode, which typically will not last more than a few minutes.

All of these stages are important, and it’s important to cycle through them enough times each night — especially the deeper stages. When stages 3 and 4 are interrupted or missing, your brain gets clogged with debris associated with Alzheimer’s disease and, indeed, sleep deprivation is a risk factor for severe dementia. Stages 1 through 4 are also what allow you to feel refreshed in the morning, while stage 5 is important for memory.

Genetic Influences

To investigate the influence of genetics, Mosley sends off a blood sample for DNA analysis. Simon Archer, Ph.D., a chronobiologist at the Surrey Clinical Research Centre, is investigating genetic markers related to sleep characteristics and hereditary sleep problems. Fifty-one DNA markers have so far been found that appear to influence sleep.

Mosley has three genetic markers that are predictive of being a morning person. He also has five markers for long sleep duration. Taken together, these genetic markers suggest Mosley needs slightly more sleep than the average person.

He also has a marker that increases his risk for insomnia, and one associated with “low sleep efficiency in people exposed to high levels of work-related stress,” Archer says. These two markers may well help explain Mosley’s inability to stay asleep throughout the night — especially when stressed.

Lastly, Mosley has a marker for increased caffeine sensitivity and caffeine-induced sleep disruption. Caffeine is a common culprit in sleep deprivation, although many (including Mosley) believe they “can drink coffee with impunity.”

Many also turn to alcohol, thinking it helps them nod off faster. Alas, research shows alcohol consumption promotes poor sleep quality. By relaxing your throat muscles, it also promotes snoring, which can be problematic not just for the sleeper but others in the household as well.

Sleep Quality Affects Your Heart Health

Sleeping poorly has a number of concerning health ramifications, including the promotion of diabetes, excess weight, heart disease, cancer and cognitive decline, just to name a few.

One interesting study³ found poor sleep excessively ages your heart, thus putting you at increased risk for heart disease at an earlier age. People who got seven hours of sleep each night had hearts showing signs of being 3.7 years older, based on biological age, than their chronological age.

People who regularly slept either six or eight hours had hearts that were on average 4.5 years older than their chronological age, while those who got just five hours or less of sleep each night had the oldest biological heart age — 5.1 years older than their chronological age.

Other research⁴ has found that even if you sleep a healthy number of hours, the quality of that sleep can have a significant impact on your risk for high blood pressure and vascular inflammation associated with heart disease.

Women who had mild sleep disturbance such as taking longer to fall asleep or waking up one or more times during the night were “significantly more likely to have high blood pressure than those who fell asleep quickly and slept soundly,” Forbes reports.⁵

Other Health Impacts of Sleep Deprivation

Other examples of health problems linked to insufficient sleep include:

Increased risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes — Mosley, who is at high risk for diabetes, participates in a sleep deprivation experiment to see how it affects glucose levels. As shown in many other studies, sleep deprivation causes an exaggerated rise in glucose and triggers carb and sugar cravings.

Together, this can easily lead to excess weight gain and Type 2 diabetes. A scientific review article⁶ published in 2017 noted “difficulty initiating sleep increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 55%, while difficulty maintaining sleep increased its risk” by a whopping 74%.

Increased risk of neurological problems, ranging from depression to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease⁷ — Your blood-brain barrier becomes more permeable with age, allowing more toxins to enter.⁸ This, in conjunction with reduced efficiency of the glymphatic system due to lack of sleep, allows for more rapid damage to occur in your brain and this deterioration is thought to play a significant role in the development of Alzheimer’s.

Decreased immune function — Research⁹ suggests deep sleep strengthens immunological memories of previously encountered pathogens. In this way, your immune system is able to mount a much faster and more effective response when an antigen is encountered a second time.

Increased risk of cancer — Tumors grow two to three times faster in laboratory animals with severe sleep dysfunctions. The primary mechanism thought to be responsible for this effect is disrupted melatonin production, a hormone with both antioxidant and anticancer activity.

Melatonin both inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells and triggers cancer cell apoptosis (self-destruction). It also interferes with the new blood supply tumors require for their rapid growth (angiogenesis).

Increased risk of osteoporosis.

Increased risk of pain and pain-related conditions such as fibromyalgia — In one study, poor or insufficient sleep was the strongest predictor for pain in adults over 50.¹⁰

Increased susceptibility to stomach ulcers.

Impaired sexual function.¹¹

Premature aging by interfering with growth hormone production, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep.

Increased risk of dying from any cause¹² — Compared to people without insomnia, the adjusted hazard ratio for all-cause mortality among those with chronic insomnia was 300% higher.

Impaired regulation of emotions and emotional perception — Your amygdala, one of your brain’s centerpiece regions for generating strong emotional reactions, including negative ones, becomes about 60% more reactive than usual when you’ve slept poorly or insufficiently, resulting in increased emotional intensity and volatility.

Increased risk of depression and anxiety (including post-traumatic stress disorder), schizophrenia and suicide — In fact, researchers have been unable to find a single psychiatric condition in which the subject’s sleep is normal.

Impaired memory and reduced ability to learn new things¹³ — Due to your hippocampus shutting down, you will experience a 40 percent deficit in your brain with respect to its ability to make new memories when you’re sleep deprived.

Reduced productivity, performance and creativity.

Slowed reaction time, increasing your risk of accidents on the road and at work — Getting less than six hours of sleep leaves you cognitively impaired. In 2013, drowsy drivers caused 72,000 car accidents in which 800 Americans were killed and 44,000 were injured.¹⁴

This is more than died from those texting and drunk drivers combined. Even a single night of sleeping only four to six hours can impact your ability to think clearly the next day.

Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Gut Bacteria

Mosley also investigates how sleep deprivation affects gut bacteria, which is yet another way in which it can influence your obesity risk. As explained in “The Truth About Sleep,” gut bacteria help extract nutrients from the food you eat and act as a barrier against infectious agents.

So, not only do they play a key role in your metabolism, they also influence your immune system function. By looking at stool samples, researchers have noted that sleep deprivation increases the ratio of two types of bacteria associated with obesity.

The way these bacteria promote obesity is by increasing your energy uptake. When you eat, the bacteria in your gut largely determine how many calories are absorbed. Interestingly, when sleep deprived, your gut becomes more efficient at absorbing calories, even if the amount of food you eat remains unchanged.

This may be quite beneficial if food is scarce, but when combined with round-the-clock food availability, it tends to promote obesity. According to Mosley, research has shown that half of those sleeping five hours or less per night are in fact obese.

Sleeping Pills Are Far From Ideal

Sleeping pills are a common go-to solution for those struggling with poor or insufficient sleep. Mosley interviews Dr. Sara Kayat, a general practitioner, about her views on sleeping pills. She only recommends and prescribes them for acute, short-term issues.

In the long term, they’re simply not a good solution, as they create dependency. You also build up a tolerance to them, so you end up needing higher and higher doses to get the same effect.

While not addressed in “The Truth About Sleep,” research has repeatedly shown sleeping pills don’t provide a significant amount of extra sleep, while having a range of potentially dangerous side effects.

For example, the best performing sleep drug in Consumer Reports’ “Best Buy Drugs Report” for 2015, zolpiderm, allowed patients to fall asleep 20 minutes faster and sleep 34 minutes longer on average, compared to placebo.^15,¹⁶

Similarly, a 2012 meta-analysis¹⁷ of data from 13 studies submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found Z drugs (nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics) decreased the time it took to fall asleep by 11 to 33 minutes (average 22 minutes) compared with placebo.

Far from contributing to health, the minor increase in sleep time that sleeping pills provide has been shown to actually increase your mortality risk over the long term.

A Norwegian study¹⁸ published in 2007, which included data from 14,451 men and women aged 40 to 42 who were followed for 18 years, found frequent use of sleeping pills increased men’s risk of death by 150% and women’s risk by 170%, after adjusting for confounding factors.

A 2010 Canadian study¹⁹ of 14,117 people between the ages of 18 and 102 also found those who used sleeping pills were 1.36 times (136%) more likely to die than nonusers. You can learn more about the hazards of sleeping pills in my May 2019 article “Sleeping Pills Get Black Box Warning Following Accidental Deaths.”

Resetting Your Body Clock to Sleep Better

Mosley goes on to visit the University of Oxford, where scientists are investigating how the human body clock or circadian rhythm influences sleep. Russel Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience, explains how the master clock in your hypothalamus is influenced by a third light-sensing system in your eyes.

Your rods and cones grab light, allowing us to see. But you also have another set of light sensors in your eyes that register dawn and dusk signals, and these cells are responsible for controlling your circadian rhythm, by communicating with the master clock in your hypothalamus.

In addition, every cell in your body has its own circadian rhythm, and all of these are coordinated by and synced to your master clock. When your master clock gets desynchronized or shifted out of phase — which can easily happen if you stay up too late watching TV or perusing your cellphone — all the other internal clocks start desynchronizing, which can trigger a cascade of health problems.

Artificial light exposure in the evening, combined with a deficiency of light exposure during daytime hours, significantly contributes to master clock desynchronization and poor sleep. Mosley visits a research laboratory on a Danish island. Built entirely of glass, the house allows your body to synchronize to the rising and setting sun.

While living in a glass house is impractical, you can reset your master clock each day by making sure you get plenty of bright sunlight first thing in the morning and around midday.

Remove electronic screens from your bedroom, such as TVs, laptops and cellphones, and stop using them at least one hour before bedtime. Really make an effort to keep your bedroom for sleeping only, without the distractions of work, school, hobbies and entertainment.

Novel Sleep Solutions

While many insomnia treatments are obvious, Mosley found a few that are a bit more unusual, yet have published papers suggesting they might be useful. These include:

Practicing mindfulness meditation
Taking a hot bath or shower about an hour before bed
Eating two kiwi fruits an hour before bed
Taking a prebiotic fiber supplement

Mosley and three volunteers each tried one of these strategies for seven days, and agreed they all helped improve their insomnia to some degree. Prebiotic supplementation appeared to be one of the most effective of these strategies.

Data collected by Mosley’s activity bracelet showed he went from 21% activity or wakefulness during the night before taking the supplement, to 8% activity after taking it for five days. Subjectively he also felt like he slept better when taking it. For additional sleep tips, see my “Top 33 Tips to Optimize Your Sleep Routine.”

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