FIRE, napping, and SWR

[dory36]

I may need to ask in Firecalc whether you nap or not -- here is something that seems really profound:

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2C35458820070213

Excerpt:

Those who made it a practice of napping at least three times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes had a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease compared to non-nappers.

 

[wabmester]

Wake me up once you make the change to FC.

Here's the journal abstract:

link

I wonder if they considered the total time spent sleeping.

 

[Sandy]

It doesn't look like they controlled for one major confound - personality type. Those who nap are likely not the aggressive go get 'em type A's. Thus, being of a more relaxed nature, less stressed -- could be that better cardiac outcomes follow.

 

[dory36]

Would be interesting to read the whole article, rather than just the abstract or the news reports.

Sandy -- did you see the whole article? The abstract says "After controlling for potential confounders..." but does not list them.

But in a peer reviewed research journal, I certainly hope they controlled for personality type -- a first year grad student wouldn't get away neglecting such an important factor.

 

[Caroline]

It doesn't look like they controlled for one major confound - personality type. Those who nap are likely not the aggressive go get 'em type A's. Thus, being of a more relaxed nature, less stressed -- could be that better cardiac outcomes follow.

Good point. Might also be that they have jobs that ALLOW napping and are more restful / less stressful to begin with.

You know... security guards, mattress testers, supreme court justices... that kind of thing.

 

[TromboneAl]

Great example of how the press misrepresents scientific studies.

The results from the study:

"...siesta [napping] in apparently healthy individuals is inversely associated with coronary mortality"

Results according to news article:

"Regular naps are good for your heart, researchers said on Monday.

A six-year study of nearly 24,000 Greek adults found those who regularly took midday naps lowered their risk of dying from heart disease by more than a third."

Those are two very different things. Study said that napping was associated with lower chance of heart disease. Article said that napping causes you to have lower chance of heart disease.

An equally reasonable (perhaps more probable) interpretation is that Type A, high stress individuals, who tend to have more heart problems, don't take naps.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

It doesn't look like they controlled for one major confound - personality type. Those who nap are likely not the aggressive go get 'em type A's. Thus, being of a more relaxed nature, less stressed -- could be that better cardiac outcomes follow.

DING! DING! DING!

Cause and effect are often mistaken for each other...

I used to count on that in my former career as a bullshitter marketing guy.

 

[Sandy]

You know... security guards, mattress testers, supreme court justices... that kind of thing.

Don't for get sleep researcher! When I did sleep research they let us take naps whenever we wanted!

Dory, no I didn't see the whole study, but I would hope they controlled for personality, but you never know. And Al nailed it - who knows what we get reading the distilled version.

 

[TromboneAl]

BTW, the only way to prove causality would be to do an "experiment" rather than a "study." That is randomly assign the people to the nap or non-nap group. The first would be required to take naps, the other prohibited from taking them.

Not going to happen, of course.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

I'll pull the article and give it a look if I find time this week.

There are those who believe (without solid proof) that "mindfulness meditation" does the same; perhaps blood pressure lowering is one factor. Most of this stuff is very hard to study due to unidentified variables, etc. A randomized controlled trial would be impractical, it appears.

There is biologic plausibility here. Evolution-wise, most primates nap after eating. Physiologically, your catecholamines fall with sleep, and these affect heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar.

Most importantly, I love to nap on weekends at least, and plan to explore that hobby actively in retirement.

 

[califdreamer]

What are catecholamines?

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

What are catecholamines?

Adrenaline (and related chemicals); think Jolt.

 

[califdreamer]

Thanks Rich. Now I'm going to take me a nap and lose some of those catecholamines.

 

[wabmester]

There is biologic plausibility here. Evolution-wise, most primates nap after eating. Physiologically, your catecholamines fall with sleep, and these affect heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar.

But most people die in their sleep, right? I've heard one theory on this: sleep apnea, which causes all sorts of interesting side-effects, including an increase in corticosteroids.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

But most people die in their sleep, right? I've heard one theory on this: sleep apnea, which causes all sorts of interesting side-effects, including an increase in corticosteroids.

I don't know if most people die in their sleep. I'd bet at least 8/24 of them do .

Sleep apnea is a whole other issue. Most are morbidly obese, and spend good portions of the night with dangerously low oxygen levels. They get arrhythmias, high blood pressure, and lots of other nasties (if untreated). They die a lot.

 

[wabmester]

Here's a different study that looks at mortality vs time asleep (including naps):

link

This one says you're more likely to die if you sleep more than 8 hrs/day.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

This one says you're more likely to die if you sleep more than 8 hrs/day.

... or people that have underlying but unidentified chronic conditions need to sleep longer, or the longer sleepers contained more sleep apnea patients who slept poorly but longer, or the longer night sleeping group had higher cholesterols (they did, in the full article). The study is very flawed - won't bore you with the details.

Maybe there's a reason it got published in the Croatian Medical Journal instead of the Annals of Internal Medicine, or the New England Journal .

 

[wabmester]

OK, here's one with a million data points published in the US

link

I wasn't looking for these studies per se -- I was actually looking for the percentage of deaths during sleep for a baseline, but I can't easily find it via google....

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

This one says you're more likely to die if you sleep more than 8 hrs/day.

So per Rich's Theorum, that would make the odds 9/24 or 10/24?

Good one Rich...

 

[wabmester]

Rich's theorem makes sense, but I can't find any data to back it.

On the subject of sleep apnea, apparently 30 million or so suffer from it, and most go undiagnosed. And Rich only described OSA, but there is also a CNS type of apnea that probably becomes more common with age.

My guess is that the odds of sleep-related death is much higher than 8/24.

Aim to grow old and die peacefully in your sleep? Be careful what you wish for.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My guess is that the odds of sleep-related death is much higher than 8/24.

Hmm...since few people sleep longer than 8 hours a day, I would imagine it'd be pretty tough to get the odds of sleep related death to be higher than 8 hours out of 24...

As far as general death rates, whether sleeping or not...I'd think you'd be much more likely to die when awake. Not a lot of hazards in my king size bed. Except for some fairly noxious dog farts.

 

[wabmester]

Hmm...since few people sleep longer than 8 hours a day, I would imagine it'd be pretty tough to get the odds of sleep related death to be higher than 8 hours out of 24...

Err, if people only slept for 1 hour/day, but everybody died in their sleep, the odds of sleep-related death would be 100%. 8/24 is what you'd expect from a random distribution if people slept 8 hours and sleep had no bearing on death.

 

[donheff]

My guess is that the odds of sleep-related death is much higher than 8/24.

Sure, but now we have to control for deteriorating old folks, cancer patients, and the like. They are sleeping most of the time so they will tend to die in their sleep. Maybe Rick's theorem should be revised to state "the odds of dying in your sleep are equal to the proportion of the day you are asleep."

 

[wabmester]

Maybe Rick's theorem should be revised to state "the odds of dying in your sleep are equal to the proportion of the day you are asleep."

OK, I accept that as Rich's theorem, but I still think it's wrong.

Now, here's Wab's conjecture. I've always heard that *most* people die in their sleep. I'd like to quantify that. And it makes sense to me that most people would die in their sleep if sleep apnea becomes more prevalent as we age, which is does. So, if most people die in their sleep, they are probably either suffocating or experiencing a heart attack from the side effects of apnea.

Still want to take a nap?

 

[Nords]

Still want to take a nap?

You bet! I love the napping part, it's the waking up that's a PITA...