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March 1st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda THURSDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) — The older you get, the
better you sleep, according to new research that challenges conventional
wisdom that a good night’s rest is harder to come by with age.
In a survey of 150,000 adults, people in their 70s and 80s had the
fewest complaints of sleep disturbance, while those between the ages of 18
and 24 had the most. Except for a bump in complaints in middle age, sleep
appears to improve steadily over the course of a lifetime.
One big implication of the study is that health-care providers should
not just dismiss poor sleep as a normal part of aging, said study author
Michael Grandner, a research associate at the Center for Sleep and
Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania.
The study, which appears in the March issue of the journal
Sleep, looked at responses to a phone survey conducted in 36 U.S.
states and territories. People described how often they had experienced
sleep disturbance or daytime drowsiness in the previous two weeks.
“In women, you saw very clear increases in both sleep disturbance and
daytime tiredness [in middle age]; in men you also saw an increase in
later middle age,” Grandner said. “I think in women, you’re seeing an
effect of pre-menopause and menopause. With men, it’s a little later.
That’s where career peaks — and peak stress — occurs, in the later
50s.”
Men in that age group are also at higher risk of sleep apnea and other
health problems, he noted.
Health problems — especially depression — had a significant effect on
sleep, the survey found.
“One of the most important findings was that depression was a
significant predictor for sleep problems,” said Michael Vitiello, a
professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of
Washington in Seattle, and an expert on sleep and aging.
“I applaud the investigators for this labor-intensive and comprehensive
examination of the question,” he said. “I’ve been on the ‘It isn’t aging,
it’s illness’ bandwagon for many years. It’s a treatable disorder. Much of
the sleep disturbance seen in older adults is not driven by aging, but by
illness.”
Healthy older people sleep better, both experts said. They don’t
necessarily nap more, and dozing off at the opera or movies is by no means
a given.
In his own research, Vitiello said, “we looked at napping in older
adults — but not as large a sample, and found that, like sleep
complaints, napping is driven by illness burden. If an older person
complains [of sleep problems], something’s going on and it needs to be
dealt with. A physician shouldn’t say, ‘OK, you’re old.’ “
Treatment could include referring a patient to a sleep clinic or to a
psychiatrist, Vitiello said. And Grandner said patients have been helped
by combinations of psychotherapy and relaxation therapy.
Because of the nature of the study — a “cross-sectional” survey — the
authors said they can’t conclude that a cause-and-effect relationship
exists between aging and sleep.
Vitiello did point out some methodology issues with the survey, such as
an overall response rate of only 40 percent. And, because the study was
landline based — no cellphones — he added that could affect
participation rates among different age groups.
“The common knowledge is that sleep deteriorates with age,” Grandner
said. And, he added, many sleep-lab studies have shown “certain aspects of
sleep get worse as you get older. Older people tend to take longer to fall
asleep, they have more awakenings. A lot of the restorative and healing
functions of sleep tend to happen less in older people.
“However, what we found [in the study] was that even if their sleep
objectively might be worse, their experience of their sleep is better,” he
said. Part of the explanation may be that older people have other health
problems that leave sleep issues lower on their radar. “Somebody who’s
much younger [might have] a much higher expectation of how they’re going
to sleep,” he said.
It could also be that people in poor health — who are more likely to
have sleep problems — are less likely to survive to older ages, he
said.
For his part, Vitiello said, “If you’re healthy, you’re probably
sleeping quite well, even into your 80s. So, if you see an older person
who is having a lot of problems staying awake during the day, you
shouldn’t just excuse that as, ‘Oh, that’s just an old-people thing.’
“
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more on getting a good night’s sleep.
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