Sleep-deprived teens risk health

August 25, 2008

They are prone to late nights of videogames, homework, and the Internet, and teenagers who don't get enough sleep may be at greater risk for hypertension. Case Western Reserve University researchers in Cleveland studied 238 healthy 13- to-16-year-olds, measuring their blood pressure nine times over two days. Teens who had trouble falling asleep or slept poorly were three-and-a-half times more likely to have prehypertension - that is, blood pressure elevated to just below hypertension levels. Teens who slept fewer than six-and-a-half hours were two-and-a-half times more likely to have prehypertension.

BOTTOM LINE: "Teens are often sleep-deprived, and the effects may lead to more than subjective feelings of sleepiness - they may also lead to changes in health status," said Dr. Susan Redline, the study's lead author and director of University Hospitals Case Medical Center's sleep center.

CAUTIONS: Researchers didn't have information addressing why the teens' sleep may have been disrupted - whether it was environmental or emotional or any number of factors. Because the teens were tested over only two days, it is possible the elevated blood pressure levels may not be sustained long term.

WHAT'S NEXT: Redline said researchers will study the teens when they are 18 to 19 years old and will also gather more information on what might be disrupting their sleep. Researchers are designing intervention studies to test whether improving sleep quality and duration boosts health.

WHERE TO FIND IT: Circulation, Sept. 2.

NEIL MUNSHI

The stressful effects of war and natural disasters may have long-term implications for the mental health of children - particularly girls - born months after the events. Researchers looked at nearly 90,000 births in Jerusalem between 1964 and 1976, and the effects of the Six-Day War between Israel and surrounding nations. They found that girls who were in their second month in the womb during the war were four times more likely to develop schizophrenia than children born at other times. Those girls whose mothers lived in areas that took direct artillery fire during the June 1967 war were 33 times as likely to develop the disorder. The effect was less pronounced among the boys: They were 1.2 times more likely to have the psychiatric disorder. A total of 637 cases of schizophrenia were diagnosed.

BOTTOM LINE: "The legacy of conflict and disaster and war on a society may be present even in later generations," said Dr. Dolores Malaspina, lead author of the study, and chairwoman of the New York University Department of Psychiatry.

CAUTIONS: Researchers could not precisely confirm the fetuses' prenatal ages because the Jerusalem Perinatal Study - from which they got population data - did not provide dates of conception.

WHAT'S NEXT: As researchers use animals to study the disease, they should focus on the early months of pregnancy, Malaspina said, to better understand the effects of pregnancy stress hormones on vulnerability to schizophrenia.

WHERE TO FIND IT: BMC Psychiatry, August.

NEIL MUNSHI