(Press-News.org) As part of the University of Colorado Department of Medicine’s annual Research Day, held on April 23, faculty member Christine Swanson, MD, MCR, described her National Institutes of Health-funded clinical research on whether adequate sleep can help prevent osteoporosis.
“Osteoporosis can occur for many reasons such as hormonal changes, aging, and lifestyle factors,” said Swanson, an associate professor in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes. “But some patients I see don’t have an explanation for their osteoporosis.
“Therefore, it’s important to look for novel risk factors and consider what else changes across the lifespan like bone does — sleep is one of those,” she added.
How bone density and sleep change over time
In people’s early- to mid-20s, they reach what is called peak bone mineral density, which is higher for men than it is for women, Swanson said. This peak is one of the main determinants of fracture risk later in life.
After reaching this peak, a person’s bone density remains roughly stable for a couple of decades. Then, when women enter the menopausal transition, they experience accelerated bone loss. Men also experience bone density decline as they age.
Sleep patterns also evolve over time. As people get older, their total sleep time decreases, and their sleep composition changes. For instance, sleep latency, which is the time it takes to fall asleep, increases with age. On the other hand, slow wave sleep, which is deep restorative sleep, decreases as we age.
“And it's not just sleep duration and composition that change. Circadian phase preference also changes across the lifespan in both men and women,” Swanson said, referring to people’s preference for when they go to sleep and when they wake up.
How can sleep relate to our bone health?
Genes that control our internal clock are present in all of our bone cells, Swanson said.
“When these cells resorb and form bone, they release certain substances into the blood that let us estimate how much bone turnover is going on at a given time,” she said.
These markers of bone resorption and formation follow a daily rhythm. The amplitude of this rhythm is larger for markers of bone resorption — which refers to the process of breaking down bones — than it is for markers of bone formation, she said.
“This rhythmicity is likely important for normal bone metabolism and suggests that sleep and circadian disturbance could directly affect bone health,” she said.
Researching the connection between sleep and bone health
To further understand this relationship, Swanson and colleagues researched how markers of bone turnover responded to cumulative sleep restriction and circadian disruption.
For this study, participants lived in a completely controlled inpatient environment. The participants did not know what time it was, and they were put on a 28-hour schedule instead of a 24-hour day.
“This circadian disruption is designed to simulate the stresses endured during rotating night shift work and is roughly equivalent to flying four time zones west every day for three weeks,” she said. “The protocol also caused participants to get less sleep.”
The research team measured bone turnover markers at the beginning and end of this intervention and found significant detrimental changes in bone turnover in both men and women in response to the sleep and circadian disruption. The detrimental changes included declines in markers of bone formation that were significantly greater in younger individuals in both sexes compared to the older individuals.
In addition, young women showed significant increases in the bone resorption marker.
If a person is forming less bone while still resorbing the same amount — or even more — then, over time, that could lead to bone loss, osteoporosis, and increased fracture risk, Swanson said.
“And sex and age may play an important role, with younger women potentially being the most susceptible to the detrimental impact of poor sleep on bone health,” she said.
Research in this area is ongoing, she added.
END
Could getting enough sleep help prevent osteoporosis?
Christine Swanson, MD, MCR, is researching the association between poor sleep and bone disease
2024-05-07
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
LyoWave licenses Purdue freeze-drying innovations, enters collaboration with Millrock Technology
2024-05-07
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — LyoWave Inc., a high-tech startup, is commercializing innovative microwave heating technologies developed at Purdue University that improve upon traditional lyophilization — or the process of freeze-drying perishable products — by increasing speed, cost-effectiveness and product throughput.
CEO and co-founder Drew Strongrich said LyoWave’s microwave energy innovations open new possibilities for a variety of products.
“Our technology overcomes the historic issues associated with microwave systems such as nonuniform heating, poor ...
CU Center for COMBAT Research and United States Air Force Academy form educational partnership
2024-05-07
Cheers erupted from a crowd gathered at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus on April 19 as leaders at the CU School of Medicine and the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) signed an educational partnership agreement, a historic moment that will open a breadth of opportunities for both institutions.
“This is a very happy occasion for us and formalizes something that we always seek to have, which is a mutually beneficial partnership with colleagues in the state,” said John J. Reilly Jr., MD, dean ...
Road of no return — loss of TP53 paves a defined evolution path from gastric preneoplasia-to-cancer
2024-05-07
“The independent research groups, led by Prof. Scott W. Lowe and Christina Curtis,respectively, have uncovered a similar definitive pathway in the progression of gastric cancer (GC) initiated with loss of the TP53 gene, representing a milstone in understanding the early stages of this deadly disease”. Dr. Zhaocai Zhou, head of a GC laboratory from Fudan University, stated.“Their study offers detailed insights into how genetic changes drive the transformation from preneoplastic conditions to full-blown cancer. Their findings revealed that loss of TP53 is not merely a common genetic anomaly but a pivotal event that propels ...
Navigating the risks: safeguarding maternal and fetal health in emergency agitation treatment
2024-05-07
A recent review article provides critical insights into the management of acute agitation in reproductive-age females and during pregnancy within the emergency departments (EDs). The study emphasizes the importance of considering the safety of psychotropic medications in this demographic population, given the potential risks to both the patient and the fetus.
Agitation in the emergency department is not uncommon and can stem from various causes, including psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, and other medical ...
Telehealth program created to improve access to specialty care found to reduce reliance on opioids in pain management
2024-05-07
COLUMBIA, Mo. (May 7, 2024) ― More Americans suffer from chronic pain than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. Yet, a shortage of pain medicine specialists persists, causing many pain sufferers to seek care in primary care settings.
Researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine have found that an innovative tele-mentoring program can help address reliance on opioids in the management of pain, with potential benefits for patients, families and communities.
Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) is an innovative educational and mentoring model where ...
Advancing satellite-based PNT service: low earth orbit satellite constellations augment the GNSS
2024-05-07
A study has outlined the critical needs and essential technologies for a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation to augment satellite navigation systems, significantly improving the Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services. This research specifically targets the diverse demands of different users for LEO augmented GNSS, the possible contribution of LEOs to PNT performances, and the key technologies referring to the LEO-based navigation augmentation system.
The Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), including the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), are the most widely used in providing PNT services. However, GNSS signals from geostationary orbit (GEO), inclined ...
Researchers show that slow-moving earthquakes are controlled by rock permeability
2024-05-07
Earthquakes are the most dramatic and noteworthy results of tectonic plate movement. They are often destructive and deadly, or at the very least physically felt — they’re literally groundbreaking geological events. However not all tectonic movement results in effects that humans can perceive.
Slow slip events occur when pent up tectonic forces are released over the course of a few days or months, like an earthquake unfolding in slow motion. The more gradual movement means people won’t feel the earth shaking beneath their feet and buildings won’t collapse. But the lack of destruction does not make slow slip events less scientifically ...
Seeking medical insights in the physics of mucus
2024-05-07
WASHINGTON, May 7, 2024 – As much as we might not want to think about it, mucus is everywhere in our bodies. It coats our airways and our digestive systems and serves as a first line of defense against pathogens, a habitat for our microbiomes, and a conveyor belt for our insides to keep everything moving smoothly.
The front-line role of mucus means it is often the site of the first symptoms of infection or disease. Understanding how mucus changes, and what it changes in response to, can help diagnose illnesses and develop treatments. Designing a study to measure the physical properties of mucus, however, is nothing to sneeze at.
In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, ...
Study sheds light on cancer cell ‘tug-of-war’
2024-05-07
WASHINGTON, May 7, 2024 – Understanding how cancerous cells spread from a primary tumor is important for any number of reasons, including determining the aggressiveness of the disease itself. The movement of cells into the extracellular matrix (ECM) of neighboring tissue is an essential step in cancer progression that directly correlates to the onset of metastasis.
In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, a team of researchers from Germany and Spain used a breast cancer cell line panel and primary tumor explants from breast and cervical cancer patients to ...
Social determinants of health and the availability of cancer clinical trials in the US
2024-05-07
About The Study: Substantial geographic disparities in cancer clinical trials availability exist throughout the United States, with the most socially vulnerable counties being far less likely to have any trial and having only a fraction of trials available, a disparity that has worsened over time.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Rishi Robert Sekar, M.D., M.S., email rsekar@med.umich.edu.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.10162)
Editor’s Note: Please ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
The refrigerator as a harbinger of a better life
Windfall profits from oil and gas could cover climate payments
Heartier Heinz? How scientists are learning to help tomatoes beat the heat
Breaking carbon–hydrogen bonds to make complex molecules
Sometimes you're the windshield: Utah State University researcher says vehicles cause significant bee deaths
AMS Science Preview: Turbulence & thunderstorms, heat stress, future derechos
Study of mountaineering mice sheds light on evolutionary adaptation
Geologists rewrite textbooks with new insights from the bottom of the Grand Canyon
MSU researcher develops promising new genetic breast cancer model
McCombs announces 2024 Hall of Fame inductees and rising stars
Stalling a disease that could annihilate banana production is a high-return investment in Colombia
Measurements from ‘lost’ Seaglider offer new insights into Antarctic ice melting
Grant to support new research to address alcohol-related partner violence among sexual minorities
Biodiversity change amidst disappearing human traditions
New approaches to synthesize compounds for pharmaceutical research
Cohesion through resilient democratic communities
UC Santa Cruz chemists discover new process to make biodiesel production easier, less energy intensive
MD Anderson launches Institute for Cell Therapy Discovery & Innovation to deliver transformational new therapies
New quantum encoding methods slash circuit complexity in machine learning
New research promises an unprecedented look at how psychosocial stress affects military service members’ heart health
Faster measurement of response to antibiotic treatment in sepsis patients using Dimeric HNL
Cleveland Clinic announces updated findings in preventive breast cancer vaccine study
Intergenerational effects of adversity on mind-body health: Pathways through the gut-brain axis
Watch this elephant turn a hose into a sophisticated showering tool
Chimpanzees perform better on challenging computer tasks when they have an audience
New medical AI tool identifies more cases of long COVID from patient health records
Heat waves and adverse health events among dually eligible individuals 65 years and older
Catastrophic health expenditures for in-state and out-of-state abortion care
State divorce laws, reproductive care policies, and pregnancy-associated homicide rates
Emerging roles of high-mobility group box-1 in liver disease
[Press-News.org] Could getting enough sleep help prevent osteoporosis?Christine Swanson, MD, MCR, is researching the association between poor sleep and bone disease