Kirstine Adam

Sleep as a Restorative Process and a Theory to Explain Why

Publisher Summary Restoration or repair must, like growth, depend on protein synthesis. This chapter presents evidence to support this proposition from nearly 60 reports showing that rates of protein synthesis or of mitotic division are higher at the time of rest and sleep. In addition, the chapter presents a theory, based on fundamental principles, to explain why this should be so. Oscillations about a mean are inherent in any system subject to feedback control, and this is true of all living systems. In the simplest organisms there are oscillations between food-engulfing activity on the one hand and inactivity with assimilation on the other. There will also be oscillations between a state in which degradative chemical processes are accelerated and one in which synthetic processes are enhanced. It is proposed in this chapter that it is the differing energy demands of the activity/inactivity rhythm that chiefly determine the degradative/synthetic rhythm, such that the synthetic period inevitably coincides with the inactive or rest period, and that this is equally true in higher organisms in which a central nervous system ensures rests integrity through positive unresponsiveness during sleep, and that such relationships, present throughout the animal kingdom, rely upon a fundamental metabolic co-coordinator, the “cellular energy charge”. The energy charge is a measure of the available free energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

Do placebos alter sleep

Deliberate suggestion that an inert capsule was a sleeping pill was found not to influence subjective ratings of sleep quality or anxiety or the electrophysiologically recorded features of sleep in 10 volunteers aged 41-62 years.

Body composition and human sleep

Abstract It has been reported that fit atheletes have more slow wave sleep (SWS), sleep longer and have shorter sleep onset latencies than unfit individuals. However, we have shown that these differences are not a direct consequence of physical fitness. This suggests that the effect is due to more enduring characteristics of individuals. We report two experiments designed to test the hypothesis that individual differences in sleep are related to differences in body composition. The hypothesis was tested in two different experiments, each comparing independent groups of fit athletes with unfit non-athletes. In each experiment both sleep and a number of anthropometric variables were measured. Twenty-five fit and 22 unfit subjects were run in Experiment 1 and 17 fit and 17 unfit in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1 percentage fat was estimated from a skin fold method, while in Experiment 2 lean body mass (LBM) was estimated from 24 h. urinary creatinine. The results showed that percentage LBM was negatively rela...

Subjective ratings of sleep quality and anxiety after placebo, drug and a food drink

Ten subjects (mean age 57 years) took part in a crossover study between a food drink and nitrazepam 5 mg. They rated their anxiety and sleep quality. On half the sleep laboratory nights during baseline periods subjects were given an inert pill which they were told would improve sleep. A comparison was made between the six pill and six non-pill nights for each subject. Subjective ratings revealed no significant difference attributable to the inert pill. Sleep quality was rated to have been improved during both late drug and early food drink administration. On early drug withdrawal sleep quality was rated worse than baseline.

Poisonings beneath the Scottish moon

coccoid rods used by Mayberry. There are indications from our results that Eubacterium and Bifidobacterium are antigenically related. We have also noted a close correlation between IgG antibodies to Bifidobacterium bifidum and the duration of Crohns disease (p =0 0006). It would therefore be of interest to know if the patients in the study by Dr Mayberry and colleagues giving poor correlations with agglutinations were recently diagnosed cases of Crohns disease. In our study ulcerative colitis patients gave a slightly raised level of antibodies to Bifidobacterium bifidum but this was not significantly different from that in normal subjects. Finally, we should state that Wensinckt found no difference between the numbers of Bifidobacterium in the faecal flora of Crohns patients and of normal subjects. J CLAIR