Health Experts Reveal Cause of Sleeping Difficulty.
A team of health experts have revealed age factor among the causes of sleeping difficulty.
Read all the latest health news in Nigeria here
The experts said that age as well as other underlying health factors such as:
The health experts who are scientists from the US explained each of these factors.
Underlying health reasons such as diabetes, insomnia, hypertension among other factor causes difficulties sleeping.
The degradation of the brain circuitry that regulates sleeping and waking up over time also affects sleep.
In a chat with AFP, Stanford University Professor Luis de Lecea said the brain circuitry paves the way for better medicine.
“More than half of people 65 and older complain about the quality of sleep,” Lecea said on Thursday.
Poor sleep also exposes one to multiple health issues. These includes:
Other sleep abnormalities like insomnia are often treated with a class of drugs called hypnotics. Some of these drugs don’t work well among the elderly so patients are advised to speak with a professional doctor.
See the latest health news in Nigeria on Retainership and HMO
This new study has been able to understand the hypocretins and key brain chemicals. These brain chemicals are derived from a small cluster of neurons in the brain’s hypothalamus.
The hypothalamus can be found between the eyes and ears.
The study revealed that from the billions of neurons in the brain only 50,000 produce hypocretins.
In 1998, de Lecea and other scientists learned that hypocretins play a vital role in stabilizing wakefulness.
The research revealed that hypocretins transmit signals that stabilizes wakefulness.
It was learned that many species also experience sleep degradation as they grow old. Also, this applies to mammals.
Initial research revealed that the degradation of hypocretins caused narcolepsy in humans, dogs and mice.
The research was conducted with three to five months old rats and 18 to 22 months old mice.
They were monitored with lights carried by fibres to stimulate neurons.
The results were recorded with imaging techniques.
According to the results, the older mice lost 38 per cent of their hypocretins, unlike the younger mice.
Latest health news in Nigeria on COVID-19
The scientists also learned that the hypocretins in the older mice triggered the animals to wake up.
Also, the deterioration of “potassium channels” which acts as switches are functional to many types of cells.
“The neurons tend to be more active and fire more. And if they fire more, you wake up more frequently,” said de Lecea.
Source: PUNCH HealthWise
