How can Not Sleeping Affect your Health

One night without sleep can make you feeling tired the whole day and yawning will probably annoy you and the people around. How about two nights of no sleeping or three? It will surely make you cranky and restless. But just a week of not enough sleep can radically change the activity of human genes. – Springhill group

According to a new study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, just one week of abnormal, insufficient sleep is enough to dramatically alter the activity of human genes.

University of Surrey in England conducted a survey and the experiment discovered that lack of sleep, at least less than six hours a night will affect the activity of over 700 of our genes.


The genes that will be affected are associated with controlling response to stress, immunity, and inflammation.

Furthermore, the research demonstrates that insufficient sleep reduces the number of genes that normally peak and fall in expression during a 24-hour period from 1,855 to 1,481.

After a week of pitiable sleep the number of genes influenced by sleep deprivation is seven times greater.

Obesity, cognitive impairment, heart disease are just few of the complications of not having enough sleep.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, sleep deprivation and sleep disorders affect from 50 to 70 million people in America thus making sleep disorders very common. But until recently, scientists were unaware how gene expression patterns were modified by poor sleep. These ‘gene expression’ patterns offer critical clues on the possible molecular mechanisms that connect sleep with total health.

26 volunteers were followed; they were exposed to a week of sleep deprivation and a week of sufficient sleep. Each week, blood samples were collected and were controlled for the effects of light, activity, and food during the week of insufficient sleep.

The genes affected by poor sleep were linked to circadian rhythms, metabolism, and sleep homeostasis.

Macromolecular metabolism, gene-expression regulation, chromatin modification, inflammatory responses, immune responses, stress responses, these are the biological processes that the investigators found as being affected.

“This research has helped us to understand the effects of insufficient sleep on gene expression. Now that we have identified these effects we can use this information to further investigate the links between gene expression and overall health.” says Derk-Jan Dijk, Director of the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey.

This study was made possible by a team up of researchers completed by sleep and circadian rhythm experts in functional bioinformatics and genomics, and physiologists.

The biological processes recognized may be involved with the negative results of poor sleep on health and stress the links between sleep homeostasis, circadian rhythmicity, and metabolism.

“The current interest in sleep and circadian rhythms as determinants of health and disease is a vital area of research. By combining our expertise in sleep and ‘genomics’ (the study of the full complement of our genes), we are starting to make breakthroughs that will have an impact on our understanding and treatment of poor health arising from insufficient sleep.” says Colin Smith, Professor of functional genomics at the University of Surrey.

Springhill Group: Cancer Prevention

Lifestyle has a big factor in having cancer and also a big factor to avoid it.

Do not overeat; obesity can cause a lot of risk to get cancer.  It’s a major cause of cancers of the esophagus, colon and rectum, pancreas, breast, endometrium, and kidneys.  Overeating can encourage tumor growth.  Tumors entail a lot more energy to absorb nutrients and grow and divide faster than a normal, healthy cell.  Control your diet.  Eat sufficient and not more than what your body needs.

Exercise can reduce you risk for many types of cancer.  Being fit seems to have an anti-cancer effect in itself aside from helping you loose weight.  Exercising doesn’t necessarily mean going to the gym, you can exercise at home a 30 minute a day at least 5 days a week can help cancer prevention.

Limit your alcohol intake; we need to be careful about how much alcohol we drink. Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol regularly increases your risk factor for many types of cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus, colon and rectum, and breast; and also causes cirrhosis, which raises the risk of liver cancer.  More than 2 drinks of alcohol a day for men and 1 alcohol drink for women a day can increase risk factors for certain types of cancer.

The most significant cancer risk factor that we can reduce is smoking.  Many though that smoking is only responsible for lung cancer but little did they know that it also causes many types of cancer.  Second hand smoke is even dangerous because this contains more than 60 known carcinogens’.  These carcinogens interrupt normal cell development. This interference is what ignites cancer development.  It is the smoke exhaled from a smoker or a lit cigarette, pipe or cigar.

A well-balanced diet is beneficial for countless reasons.  Eating fruits and vegetables can protect against several cancers, they contain antioxidants, we should eat five serves of vegetables and two serves of fruit each day.  Antioxidants help repair our damaged cells.  Green, orange and yellow fruits and vegetables are your best bet to help prevent cancer.  Studies also demonstrate that dark fruits, like blueberries and grapes, may also have anti-cancer properties.

 
According to many studies, cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower appear to pack a powerful punch at preventing cancer.  Additional cruciferous vegetables include bok choy, Brussel sprouts, and cabbage.

Although meat is a terrific source of protein it is probably the most surprising finding that red meat was convincingly linked to colorectal cancer, along side with processed meat.  Red meat contains much more fat than poultry and fish and studies shown that a diet high in animal fat increases the risk for several types of cancer.  A diet high in fat also is major cause of obesity, which is a risk factor for many types of cancer.  The more meat you eat, the greater the risk is.  About 30% increase in cancer risk factor is added to meat consumers compare to non-eater.  500 grams* of red meat is the only amount recommended in a week and avoid processed meat such as bacon, ham, salami, corned beef and some sausages. Legumes such as beans, lentils and soybeans are good substitutes for protein source.

Another reason not to eat red meat too much according to some scientists is cooking at high temperatures (another reason to curb your barbecue cravings) and red meat’s natural glycoproteins, which induce chronic inflammation in human tissue.

Foods high in folate possibly will reduce the risk of cancer of the pancreas, and diets high in calcium may reduce the risk of bowel cancer.  Additional recommendations include:

• limit consumption of salt
• don't take vitamin supplements – you don't need them and some have been linked to cancer
• Mothers should breastfeed babies for the first six months: breastfeeding protects women against breast and other cancers.
• Eating too many carbohydrates can also lead to chronic inflammation, which in turn, could encourage tumor growth.

Most cancer can be avoided and it is easier than you think.  Lifestyle plays a big role in cancer prevention; you can drastically reduce your risk if you change your lifestyle soon.

Do Infections Speed Up Alzheimer's? Springhill medical group reported>>

“An increase in brain inflammation, such as that caused by age, diabetes and obesity, is known to increase risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Now scientists at UK's Southampton University are about to start a three-year study, using brain tissue generously donated by people who died with Alzheimer's disease, to see if inflammation caused by infections such as those of the urinary tract or chest, also speeds up progress of the disease.” – medical news today

In an announcement released on Wednesday, study leader Delphine Boche, Lecturer in Clinical Neurosciences at Southampton, says: "Many of the known risk factors for Alzheimer's, like age, obesity and diabetes, increase inflammation in the brain and we think that infections could be another risk factor." "There is already evidence that the immune system is on high alert in people with Alzheimer's and we think that an extra trigger, like an infection, could tip the balance and make immune cells switch from being protective to harmful," she adds.

alzheimer's brain

Alzheimer's Research UK has already put £300,000 into the project. The money is part of the charity's £20m investment in leading dementia research in the UK.

The study started in January 2013, and will add to the growing pile of evidence that shows how the immune system is implicated in Alzheimer's disease. The Southampton team believes that in Alzheimer's, the immune system goes beyond its role as protector of the body and starts causing damage, like it does in an autoimmune disease.

For their study, Boche and colleagues will use brain tissue generously donated by people who had Alzheimer's disease when they died. With reference to donors' medical records, the researchers will compare the brains of those who had infections when they died with those who did not.

They will be particularly interested in immune cells known as "microglia", which go around mopping up cellular debris. They will use fluorescent tags to label the cells in the brain, and look at them under the microscope. The team will be looking for signs that infection causes distinct changes in microglia in people with Alzheimer's. Boche says they believe the microglia may produce chemicals that are harmful to surrounding cells and make Alzheimer's worse.

"The findings could have important implications both for our understanding of the disease and for the management of healthcare in the elderly," says Boche, adding that she and her team are "incredibly grateful to Alzheimer's Research UK and their supporters for providing us with the funds to make the research possible".

The hope is the findings will increase understanding about how to delay the progression of Alzheimer's, a disease that affects over half a million people in the UK. Eric Karran, Director of Research at Alzheimer's Research UK, says: "Slowing the progression of Alzheimer's could have a huge impact on families and allow people more valuable time with their loved ones." "Only by understanding the factors that drive the disease, can we develop new and innovative ways to slow it down," he adds. Last year, several new studies helped with funds from the charity, showed that inflammation plays an important role in Alzheimer's, and the charity expects this latest project will build on those results.

In June 2012, scientists in the US reported the results of a small trial where a group of Alzheimer's patients treated for 3 years with an immunotherapy drug showed no symptom decline over the treatment period.