Study shows body's need for REM sleep - rapid eye movement sleep

Nutrition Health Review, Spring, 2003

Most people find that a good night's sleep is the foundation for an energetic and productive day. The problem, however, is that fewer adults are getting the rest that they need.

Surveys indicate that about one in three adults over age 55 experience chronic insomnia or some other sleep disorder. A study published in the January/February 2003 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine followed a group of healthy, elderly people for an average of 13 years. It was found that subjects who had a difficult time falling asleep or staying asleep were more likely to die of natural causes than subjects who rested comfortably each night.

Mary A. Dew, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, says that researchers should now examine whether medications or behavioral treatments for insomnia might benefit the elderly.

A separate investigation, begun in 1984, studied the sleeping habits of 186 older adults between the ages of 60 and 80 years. The participants in the study had no record of mental disorders, significant sleep disturbances, or any noticeable decline in thinking and memory. Each person underwent brain wave monitoring in a sleep laboratory.

After 19 years, 66 volunteers had died, mainly from natural causes such as cancer, heart disease, and pneumonia. Of those 66 participants, 38 percent had taken longer than 30 minutes to fall asleep and 51 percent had difficulty sleeping through the night. The volunteers who experienced an unusually high or low rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep also showed an increase in the rate of death attributed to natural causes.

The varying rates of death could not be explained by age, race, sex, or physical condition of the volunteers involved.

"[Sleep disturbances] are increasingly being implicated as predictors of mortality, especially in older adults," explained Michael Irwin, a psychiatrist and sleep researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

There is no definitive reason as to why sleep patterns affect mortality rates, but several possibilities were submitted. For example, in earlier studies, sleep disturbances have been associated with a compromised immune system. Other studies show than sleep disorders are linked with heart disease and neurotransmitter disturbances that may contribute to brain disease.

Ms. Dew also notes that sleep apnea, irregular circadian rhythms, and the undetected, early stage of progressive brain diseases could be the culprit.

These study results should not cause people to panic and overdo it with sleeping pills, however. Sleep disturbances can often be overcome by regular sleep schedules, exercise, and moderate alcohol use. If problems persist, it is recommended that patients see their physicians.