Reflections From A Chair

Forbes published an article today entitled “Early Bedtime May Help Stave Off Teen Depression.”

It discusses recent research on teens and sleep by James Gangwisch of Columbia University Medical Center.

The study found that “Teens whose parents insist on 10 p.m. or sooner for lights out were 25 percent less likely to be depressed and 20 percent less likely to have suicidal thoughts, compared with kids who hit the sack at midnight or later.”

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) has a fact sheet about teens and sleep on their website. They suggest that “Teens need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep each night to function best (for some, 8 1/2 hours is enough). Most teens do not get enough sleep — one study found that only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights.”

The NSF conducted a poll in 2006  and found that “73% of those adolescents who report feeling unhappy, sad, or depressed also report not getting enough sleep at night and being excessively sleepy during the day.”

The NSF also finds that sleep and depression have a reciprocal relationship. “Research shows that lack of sleep affects mood, and a depressed mood can lead to lack of sleep. To combat this vicious cycle, sleep experts recommend that teens prioritize sleep and focus on healthy sleep habits. Teens can start by getting the 8.5 to 9.25 hours of sleep they need each night, keeping consistent sleep and wake schedules on school nights and weekends, and opting for relaxing activities such as reading or taking a warm shower or bath before bed instead of turning on the TV or computer.”

The article also has an extensive list of pointers to help improve sleep hygiene.

On another front, Science Daily highlights another study today. Their article has a self-explanatory title: Insomnia With Objective Short Sleep Duration In Men Is Associated With Increased Mortality.

They write that “men with insomnia and sleep duration of six or fewer hours of nightly sleep are at an increased risk for mortality…men with insomnia and less than six hours of nightly sleep were at highest risk of mortality.”

This is based on a study conducted in Pennsylvania over the course of fourteen years.

So ask the teens and men in your life: “Got Sleep?”

Just a quick update today.

The New York Times has a fairly exhaustive (no pun intended) article on sleep hygiene. It is titled “A Cost-Effective Good Night’s Sleep.”

The article is self-explanatory so I won’t attempt to redo what they have already done well. You can see the article in its entirety by clicking here.

The Medical News recently posted and article entitled: Research suggests potential new treatment for anxiety disorders and depression.

The article reviews the study A New Role for FGF2 as an Endogenous Inhibitor of Anxiety, which was published by The Journal of Neuroscience on May 13, 2009.

The article reminds us that “(p)revious human studies…showed that people with severe depression had low levels of FGF2 and other related chemicals. However, it was unclear whether reductions in FGF2 were the cause or effect of the disease.”

FGF2 wears several hats in the human body. According to Wikipedia, FGF2 plays a role in “excessive anxiety…wound healing…tumor development.” Further, FGF2 is “a critical component of human embryonic stem cell culture…”

The researchers studied rats that were genetically bred for high anxiety and low anxiety. They “found lower FGF2 levels in rats bred for high anxiety compared to those bred for low anxiety.”

The study’s lead researcher, Javier Perez, PhD, at the University of Michigan, states that “We have discovered that FGF2 has two important new roles: it’s a genetic vulnerability factor for anxiety and a mediator for how the environment affects different individuals. This is surprising, as FGF2 and related molecules are known primarily for organizing the brain during development and repairing it after injury.”

In other words, persons with genetically low levels of FGF2 are at higher risk for anxiety.

The researchers also looked at the complex interplay between the environment and FGF2 levels.

Very interestingly, “Perez and colleagues found that giving the high-anxiety rats a series of new toys reduced anxiety behaviors and increased their levels of FGF2.” So, changing and enriching the environment has an effect of anxiety reduction and increasing FGF2 levels.

Perhaps, then, genetically low levels of FGF2 might be compensated for in part if the environment is made interesting, fun, and relatively low stress.

On the other hand, according to The Medical News, the researchers “found that FGF2 treatment alone reduced anxiety behaviors in the high-anxiety rats.”

How does FGF2 specifically impact anxiety? The Medical News summarizes the studies findings:

“Finally, the findings suggest that part of FGF2′s role in reducing anxiety may be due to its ability to increase the survival of new cells in a brain region called the hippocampus….Although the researchers found that high-anxiety rats produced the same number of new brain cells as low-anxiety rats, they found decreased survival of new brain cells in high-anxiety rats compared to low-anxiety rats. However, FGF2 treatment and environmental enrichment each restored brain cell survival.”

Thus, in one of life’s many cruel twists of fate, people who are vulnerable to anxiety because of low levels of FGF2, also suffer from increased levels of cell death at times of stress. The cell death makes them less able to cope with the environmental and other precipitants to their anxiety. Those who would benefit the most from increased brain cell growth and survival are deprived of it due to genetically low levels of FGF2.

This study also sheds a very engaging light onto the age old question of nature versus nurture. It would seem, from this study, that neither nature nor nurture by themselves can adequately explain why some people are more anxious than others. Rather, it is a complex interaction of both genetic and environmental factors.

Future studies might be able to identify new medications to bolster levels of FGF2 as well as to identify changes in a person’s lifestyle and environment that support FGF2 levels and the consequent improvements in cell growth and anxiety reduction.