Fw: Blind people more likely to suffer from light-related sleep disorder

[Guest guest]

Blind people more likely to suffer from light-related sleep

disorder

>> Dear Friends,

>>

>> Although you might have light-perception, and this article might not

>> relate to you, I urge you to pass it around to your friends and

>> associates that might benefit from reading the article.

>> >

>> With Best Regards,

>> Alan

>> Miami, Florida

>>

>> Blind people more likely to suffer from light-related sleep disorder

>> Published on Monday August 06, 2012

>> Alyssa A. Botelho

>> The Washington Post

>> WASHINGTON- Brunson, who has been blind since birth, suddenly

>> awoke and found herself standing at 15th and K streets in Northwest

>> Washington.

>> She had stopped at the corner on her way home from work to await a safe

>> time to cross and had dozed off. Even on awakening, she was so groggy she

>> couldn't focus well enough to hear passing cars and judge when it was

>> safe to cross.

>> The incident was a startling reminder of the sleep problems that had

>> plagued her since birth.

>> " Who knows how long I had been standing there, " she said. " I realized

>> then that my safety was in jeopardy, and I began searching for remedies

>> with a vengeance. "

>> But years after that 2005 traffic scare and many subsequent visits to

>> doctors and sleep clinics, Brunson still lies awake in bed night after

>> night and then is desperately sleepy during the day.

>>

>> Although doctors have not definitively identified her disorder,

>> researchers believe she suffers from non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder, or

>> " non-24. " The chronic and little-known sleep condition is characterized

>> by a body clock that is not aligned with a 24-hour day.

>>

>> Though non-24 can affect those with normal vision, it is especially

>> prevalent among blind people who cannot sense light, the strongest

>> environmental signal that synchronizes the brain's sleep-wake pattern to

>> the 24-hour cycle of the Earth day.

>>

>> According to the preliminary results of an ongoing clinical trial that

>> were released earlier this summer, of the estimated 65,000 to 95,000

>> blind people in the United States who have sleep complaints, up to 70

>> percent might suffer from non-24.

>>

>> " It is a devastating condition ... because you are trying to keep a job

>> and a social life while your body's internal clock is competing against

>> the 24-hour outside world, " said Harvard neuroscientist Lockley,

>> who is one of the principal investigators of the clinical trial.

>>

>> It was Lockley who told Brunson about non-24 at a meeting of the American

>> Council of the Blind (ACB).

>>

>> " My boss at the time, who had been hearing about my sleep problems for

>> years, dragged me by the arm to Dr. Lockley and demanded, 'Fix her!' "

>> Brunson said.

>>

>> With that introduction, Brunson, who is now the executive director of the

>> ACB, enrolled as a participant in one of Lockley's early studies on sleep

>> disorders of the blind. After working with his team, she learned that her

>> body clock ran on a cycle longer than 24 hours.

>>

>> The human body clock consists of an intricate network of chemical and

>> electrical signals controlled by two rice-grain-size structures deep in

>> the brain. Most people's internal clock runs slightly longer than 24

>> hours. However, among sighted people, the clock is reset each day by

>> light-sensing cells in the eyes that signal to the brain that it is

>> daytime.

>>

>> For the blind, this reset mechanism fails. The resulting symptoms are

>> similar to those experienced by sighted people who chronically disrupt

>> their light cycle by shift work or travel across time zones.

>>

>> Here is how it works: In theory, a blind person with an internal body

>> clock of 24.5 hours may feel ready to fall asleep at 10:30 p.m. on Monday

>> but not be able to fall asleep until 11 p.m. on Tuesday. This cycle is

>> unrelenting making those affected want to fall asleep later and later

>> each day.

>>

>> For Brunson, the waves of disturbed sleep typically occur in three- or

>> four-week episodes of insomnia that cause her to wake up between 1 and 2

>> in the morning, regardless of when she goes to bed.

>>

>> Jack Mendez, a 35-year-old information technology professional who

>> learned last year that he has non-24, often finds himself awaking between

>> 2 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., unable to fall back to sleep. On the evening that

>> he spoke with a Post reporter, he had been awake since 3 in the morning.

>>

>> Some who suffer from non-24 have found limited relief through treatment

>> with synthetic versions of the hormone melatonin, which works to drag

>> forward the body clock's reset time by providing a chemical pulse to the

>> brain that signals nighttime.

>> Synthetic doses of melatonin help alleviate Brunson's non-24, but the

>> treatment does not work at all for Mendez.

>> " It gives me nightmares and cold sweats, and I feel hung over the next

>> day, " he said.

>>

>> Shuttled from doctor to doctor as a child, Mendez has been prescribed

>> everything from sleeping pills to psychotropic drugs. Thus far, he has

>> found no treatments that help. He praises his fiancée for her patience in

>> tolerating their often opposite sleeping schedules.

>>

>> There are no FDA-approved medications to treat non-24. However, the

>> ongoing clinical trial has advanced from screening participants for

>> non-24 to testing a candidate drug called tasimelteon. The drug, which is

>> intended to treat non-24 and other circadian rhythm sleep disorders, is

>> being developed by Washington, D.C.,-based Vanda Pharmaceuticals.

>>

>> Vanda scientists hope that tasimelteon, which has a similar molecular

>> structure to melatonin, will have superior beneficial effects. Synthetic

>> melatonin itself is classified as a dietary supplement.

>>

>> Northwestern University professor Phyllis Zee, a neuroscientist and sleep

>> specialist who was not involved in Vanda's research, said that

>> tasimelteon's long-term effects remain unclear, but at the very least the

>> trial is valuable in raising awareness about and creating a better

>> understanding of the condition.

>> " Most physicians and blind patients are unfamiliar with non-24, and a

>> large-scale study of the totally blind is crucial in developing criteria

>> for diagnosis, " she said.

>>

>> Although Brunson and Mendez both participated in the screening phase of

>> the tasimelteon trial, neither of them chose to take the drug because

>> they were wary of its impact on job performance and its interactions with

>> other medications.

>> But Mendez, who is at the Louisiana Center for the Blind finishing a

>> nine-month training program that will help him travel and work more

>> independently, plans to rejoin the trial and try tasimelteon after his

>> course ends.

>> " The training has helped me learn to think about blindness as just a

>> characteristic, not as a thing that consumes my life, " he said. " Of

>> course, a good sleep helps with that thinking, too. "

>>

>>

>>

>

[Guest guest]

I sleep odd hours myself.

I woke up last night at two and by 9 this morning I was sleepy.

Odd hours.

Becky

Re: Fw: Blind people more likely to suffer from

light-related sleep disorder

> Hello, all,

> Thanks for this interesting progress report on the study relating to

> non-24. It is now 6 A.M. I have been up since two.

> This problem probably provides one explanation as to why we have so

> much type 2 in the blind community.

> Dotty

>

>

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