Short Sleepers May Catch More Colds
September 3, 2015

Want to avoid catching a cold this winter? Start by getting more than six hours of sleep a night.

In what may be the first study of this kind, researchers say they found that adults who sleep less than five or six hours a night are four times more likely to catch a cold than than those who get at least seven or more hours of sleep.

"Sleep plays a role in regulating the immune system, and that's how we think it influences susceptibility to the common cold," said Aric A. Prather, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, who is the lead author of the study, published online this week in the journal Sleep.

Previous research had suggested a link between less sleep and higher vulnerability to colds, but that study relied on subjects self-reporting the number of hours they slept. The new study was the first to measure actual sleep. To do so, the researchers used a technique called wrist actigraphy, which uses a watchlike device with an accelerometer that measures movement and inactivity and which, when combined with sleep diaries, provides a more accurate accounting of sleep.

"This study reinforces the notion that sleep is just as important to your health as diet and exercise," said Dr. Nathaniel F. Watson, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. "People need to view sleep as a tool to achieve a healthy life, rather than as something that interferes with all their other activities."

Many Americans don't get enough sleep; a 2013 survey by the National Sleep Foundation said that one in five adults gets less than six hours of sleep on an average work night.

Poor sleep has been linked to numerous chronic illnesses, and new guidelines issued this year by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society urge adults to get seven or more hours of sleep per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health.

The guidelines say that sleeping less than seven hours per night is associated with weight gain, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke, depression and premature death, as well as "impaired immune function, increased pain, impaired performance, increased errors and greater risk of accidents."

The new study recruited 164 men and women aged 18 to 55 from the Pittsburgh, Pa., area between 2007 and 2011, and put them through extensive health screenings, questionnaires and interviews to determine their levels of stress, their general temperament and their use of alcohol and tobacco. Then the researchers measured the subjects' normal sleep habits for a week, before sequestering them in a hotel and deliberately administering them nasal drops containing the cold virus.

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Heart age of most Americans outpaces their actual age
September 3, 2015

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 3 out of 4 adults in the United States have a heart age that is older than their actual age, posing potential health risks for nearly 69 million adults between the ages of 30 and 74.

Heart age is based on is the calculated age of a person's cardiovascular system based on risk and lifestyle health factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes and BMI.

"Too many U.S. adults have a heart age years older than their real age, increasing their risk of heart disease and stroke," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, in a press release. "Everybody deserves to be young -- or at least not old -- at heart."

The CDC study, published in Vital Signs, used data from the Framingham Heart Study to determine the age of adult hearts in the United States.

Researchers found that the average heart age for adult men is 8 years older than their chronological age and 5 years older for women. Average age of hearts outpaced real age for nearly every racial and ethnic group, with black men and women having the highest heart age at 11 years past their chronological age.

The problem is worse for men than women, as researchers reported that 1 out every 2 men's hearts is 5 years older than their actual age and 2 out of every 5 women's hearts are 5 years older. Roughly 3 out of every 4 heart attacks and strokes are due to heart age-related causes.

Additionally, the researchers found that while heart age generally increases with age, whether or not it outpaces real age, and that heart age decreases with greater education and household income.

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