Sleep Health and Benefits

Every year about this time, sleep experts come forward to recommend that we stop turning out clocks back in the fall and forward in the spring. This year it's a group of top sleep experts from the British Sleep Society urging the UK government to stop the twice-yearly clock changes due to their negative impact on sleep and body rhythms. 

Based on scientific evidence, they argue that morning daylight helps sleep and body clocks, while changing the clocks—especially moving forward in spring—disrupts this. The Society recommends sticking to Standard Time all year round.

Research shows that the shift to Daylight Saving Time can harm sleep patterns. Professor Malcolm von Schantz from Northumbria University emphasized that keeping Standard Time year-round would better align our body clocks with natural daylight, improving sleep and health, even if it means earlier sunsets in the summer.

Dr. Eva Winnebeck added that DST forces us to wake up an hour earlier without changing daylight, making darker mornings especially difficult in the autumn.

Dr. Megan Crawford warns that keeping DST all year round is not ideal for sleep and body clocks. She explained that our body clocks need morning light to stay in sync, and at the UK's latitude, there's no extra daylight to save in the winter. Morning light is more important than afternoon light for health.

The full statement is available in the Journal of Sleep Research, supported by various sleep organizations. Experts at Northumbria’s Sleep Research Centre continue to study sleep disorders and their treatment, working in a specialized facility.

Weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro have gained great traction in recent months, and now drugmakers have found another benefit of the popular medications. 

Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the weight loss drug Zepbound (tirzepatide), learned that in addition to weight loss, the drug was also effective at improving patients’ sleep apnea symptoms. 

“Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) impacts 80 million adults in the U.S, with more than 20 million living with moderate-to-severe OSA,” said Dr. Jeff Emmick, senior vice president, Product Development at Eli Lilly. “However, 85% of OSA cases go undiagnosed and therefore untreated. 

“Addressing this unmet need head-on is critical, and while there are pharmaceutical treatments for the excessive sleepiness associated with OSA, tirzepatide has the potential to be the first pharmaceutical treatment for the underlying disease.” 

Weight loss and sleep apnea

Researchers conducted two rounds of the clinical trial to determine how Zepbound affected both sleep apnea and obesity. In both trials, participants took either 10 mg or 15 mg of Zepbound.  

Apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) was the primary outcome measured in terms of sleep apnea. This figure measures the intensity of a person’s sleep apnea depending on how often their breathing is obstructed in their sleep. 

The first round of the study lasted one year and none of the participants were using any kind of positive airway therapy (PAP) for their sleep apnea. At the end of the year, the study showed that Zepbound yielded stronger outcomes for weight loss and sleep apnea than the placebo. 

Patients taking the drug went from nearly 28 breathing events per hour at the start of the study to fewer than five after taking the drug. On top of that, body weight decreased from 18.1% at the start of the study to 1.3%. 

The second round of the study was similar, except patients were using PAP for sleep apnea throughout the entirety of the study. However, Zepbound still proved to be effective at reducing sleep apnea-related symptoms. 

AHI went from 30.4 events per hour when the study began to six events per hour after one year. Similarly, these patients experienced a reduction in body weight reduction – from 20.1% at baseline to 2.3% at the end of the study. 

Between the two studies, the drug was found to reduce AHI by nearly 65%. 

Eli Lilly is now taking these results to the FDA in an effort to get the drug approved for both obesity and obstructive sleep apnea. 

Sleep issues are bad enough for a growing number of Americans, but a new study raises the question that some parents may be overdosing their own children with melatonin.

So much, in fact, that the number of melatonin ingestion cases reported to poison control centers across the U.S. increased 530% from 2012 to 2021 – and most of those were children younger than five years old. 

New research from the University of Colorado Boulder, published in JAMA Pediatrics, shows that nearly one in five school-aged children and preteens now take melatonin for sleep, and some parents give the hormone to preschoolers on a regular basis.

That word “hormone” should be taken seriously, too. Some researchers have their hand in the air, raising questions that since melatonin is a hormone, could taking melatonin theoretically affect hormonal development? Research has yet to conclusively say yes or no to that question, but the possibility still looms. 

The fact that gummies look and taste like candy also poses another risk.

A sleep doctor raises even more questions

How slippery of a slope is giving melatonin to children? The Sleep Doctor, Dr. Michael Breus shares his thoughts on the negative effects of melatonin in children with ConsumerAffairs.

“This saddens me to see these numbers because once again we are not thinking about the health of our children,” he said.

“I do not believe we should give pills to kids to sleep. It gives the wrong message, and in the case of melatonin, it's usually not doing any good. There are very few cases where a child would actually require melatonin, and all of those would fall under either having a deficiency or Autism.”

Breus also doubled down on the fact that melatonin is a hormone and parents need to realize that, in most cases, children make over four times the amount of melatonin they need, making this completely unnecessary.

Melatonin has “significant” interaction effects with other medications, too he said – including antidepressants, diabetes meds, and blood pressure meds.

“If a child is on one of these for any reason their treatment may be affected. Ninety-nine percent of parents are overdosing their kids, and we have no idea what this effect can have in the future.”