Article Review...SLEEP ANYONE?

In the article, Why Does Lack of Sleep Affect Us Differently? Study Hints It May Be In Our Genes, discusses a study in which people who have a gene linked with narcolepsy are monitored. 92 people without this gene variant and 37 people with this gene variant did not display any type of sleep issues during the monitoring process. During the process, subjects came to the lab and slept for 10 hours in a bed and reported feeling rested. During time trials where the subjects were constantly woken or disturbed, subjects were only allowed to sleep for 4 hours a night. In order to keep the subjects from falling asleep, researchers would do anything to entertain them.

Subjects were allowed to play card games, read, watch movies, anything to distract them for how tired they were. Sleep quality was measured and subjects also rated their sleepiness, and performed memory tests.

Researchers found that those with the variant of the gene were found to much more sleep deprivation and reported feeling more tired in both conditions: being fully rested, and running on four hours of sleep. People with the gene variant were also getting up multiple times during the night/ their sleep trial as opposed to those without the gene variant.

According to the actual researcher, this gene will help identify those people who are more susceptible to falling asleep and feeling sleep deprived. The researcher felt that this information would be most beneficial to people who work late night shifts, have severe family obligations/ are taking care of children or elderly people who might waken during the night, and people who travel through different time zones for work or personal obligations.

I did not like this review of the article because I felt as if the writer jammed together the methods and results and threw it on paper as fast as possible. When I am reading I like to know everything in order. The first thing that disturbed me was the methods. The writer did not explain the technique(s) or the process in which patients recorded their sleepiness.

 

 I did not know if they used a survey format or if the patient met individually with the researcher and spoke of their feelings. I also feel as if the activity level of the patients should have been recorded. That might be key to determine at what point people started to “slouch” or “feel too tired to function.” I did not know age or gender either, both of which are vital to a sleep study.

 

The article mentioned no previous training required by subjects and I wondered how the subjects prepped for something like this. Would they sleep a lot in order to feel rested going into this trial? Would they have “practiced” on their own? This article was originally from October and I remember it coming across my aol news feed and the title caught my eye, Why Does Lack of Sleep Affect Us Differently? Study Hints It May Be in Our Genes. I was intrigued by how researchers were studying sleep and if new improvements had been made to help patients or people in general get a better quality night sleep.

 

Sleep fascinates me and maybe it is because it is lacking in my life and so I feel the urge to read about it. It would be interesting to tie a sleep study with food or a sleep study with beverage and see how that impacts sleepiness. I am guilty of eating something just to stay awake and drinking multiple cups of tea just to help hold my eyes open.