Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

academic.oup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 427 posts

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#211

Post by Aurornis »

voxic11 wrote: post #197
Aurornis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment above just said “sleeping pills” which is ambiguous. Melatonin is an OTC supplement. True “sleeping pills” are usually controlled substances and few doctors would prescribe them as first-line options for a patient who shows up with first time complaints of sleep problems. They won’t be prescribed long-term either. The part of the post that says doctors (plural) tried to prescribe the pills makes me think…

Lots of people take diphenhydramine products as sleeping pills and they are advertised as such OTC in the US. Long term Diphenhydramine use is associated with many negative health outcomes and despite the warning labels many people become dependent on them.

The parent post was talking about doctor prescribed medications.

The reason diphenhydramine Is associated with a slight increase in dementia risk is the anticholinergic properties. This risk increase is from correlational studies on other medications with anticholinergic medicines being taken for many years by elderly people, so the risk of taking Benadryl occasionally is low to none.

The prescription alternatives like doxepin have the same antihistamine properties without the anticholinergic properties when used at the prescribed dose.

This is an example where people can get themselves into the wrong outcome by assuming anything their doctor prescribes is a last resort quick fix, but anything they can source by themself is safer and superior.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#212

Post by ZeWaka »

cogman10 wrote: post #200
petilon wrote: post #82

Magnesium supplementation solved my sleep issues. I have seen many doctors, including sleep specialists, regarding insomnia. They all pointed to one source as the reason for the sleep issues: stress. And they all wanted to put me on prescription sleeping pills. I said no to that. Sleeping pills can cause dependence, and they often treat the symptom rather than the underlying cause. As a software developer, I am used…

Speaking of which, I think it's a great idea for everyone to get their vitamin levels checked. Your doctor is unlikely to order such a blood test unless you are in an extreme situation, but it's cheap (around $100) to get a pretty extensive panel done. I did it recently and found out basically all my b vitamins were in the toilet along with my vitamin D level. I started taking a b complex vitamin and D3 supplement an…

Interesting, my doctor recommends doing a blood panel every 5 years.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#213

Post by iamacyborg »

dns_snek wrote: post #172
teitoklien wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where's the advert link to his favourite supplement, search those phrases and there will be 200 different brands selling this same commodity so which one is paying him commission ? All? Hmmmmmmm People sharing their experience doesnt immediately mean AI-generated advert

I'm not taking either side but people don't need to directly link to their own store to benefit from increased awareness and "hype" in some product category - a rising tide lifts all boats. "Health" and more specifically the supplement industry is just a revolving door of fads. There's also survivorship bias, those who are obvious get banned quickly.

If my Instagram feed is anything to be believed, apparently we all need to be taking extra electrolytes in now.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#214

Post by kilroy123 »

The only thing that has worked for me to keep my sleep regular is to go outside first thing in the morning and sit for 15-20 minutes. Rain or shine. Even if it's cold or cloudy.

This has been game changing and keeps me on a regular sleep routine.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#215

Post by Aurornis »

xp84 wrote: post #210
voxic11 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people take diphenhydramine products as sleeping pills and they are advertised as such OTC in the US. Long term Diphenhydramine use is associated with many negative health outcomes and despite the warning labels many people become dependent on them.

Yes - I saw a very interesting video the other day that educated me a lot on Benadryl - apparently it has a lot of side effects, can cause dementia, and is probably best avoided.

Occasional Benadryl is fine. The dementia risk is from correlations found in other medicines that share some of the same properties, when taken for many years.

It’s not a good idea to take Benadryl for many years, but occasional use or even for months while going through a difficult period isn’t going to cause dementia.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#216

Post by bitexploder »

kakacik wrote: post #116
bitexploder wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magnesium is a great supplement in general. You can definitely have too much in your system and that is undesirable, but a bit before bed time along with 1-3mcg of melatonin work well for me. It is nice after workouts. I use magnesium glycinate in powder form, which is more bioavailable than some forms as well. I also find sauna before bed is good. I have a bed chiller so I can crank up the sauna before bed and not s…

Mg or melatonin have 0 effects on me, Mg helps if I over-exercise but thats for muscles regeneration. I dont have problems normally, just cant sleep in high altitude, 3000m is already showing mild effects. Guess what, I do/did quite a bit of mountaineering, its easy to get above 5000m in himalayas, highest I've been in tent attempting to sleep before summit push was 6000m on Aconcagua. Tried both Mg and melatonin up…

I wonder if that is an adaptation time problem? It takes about a month for the body to fully adjust. I live at 1500m elevation in the Denver area of Colorado, but I do recall feeling more restless during sleep at elevation before I lived here.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#217

Post by OkayPhysicist »

NichoPaolucci wrote: post #182
dalben wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could pick a company car in my previous company (it's a tax thing). We could pick any color, apart from red, because the insurance forbade it - red cars get into more accidents. Somehow that must have made it all the way to the policy without someone asking "is it the red car or the kind of person that picks a red car that causes more accidents?"

I drive a "Victory Red" 2005 Chevy Silverado. I always thought it was a "safer" color for a vehicle. I have always assumed that, being in a larger vehicle that is bright red, people would be more likely to spot the vehicle from further away, notice it out of the corner of their eye, or that I would generally be MORE visible to other drivers. I'm sure the correlation insurance companies are looking at is that the driv…

IDK. I got a hand-me-down sporty car when I was in high school, which was initially white, then I had it painted orange as a birthday gift a year or two later. Comparing the before and after, there was a noticeable shift in how other drivers responded to me, and not universally for the better. I was less likely to go unnoticed (think people trying to merge into me, or jumping out in front of me when they have a yield), but a subset of people (mostly other young men, sometimes older men driving minivans) would act significantly more aggressively. No one ever tried to race me when my car was white. It'd happen like once a week once the car was orange. People actively speeding up to avoid me passing them also increased substantially.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#218

Post by raddan »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #78
getnormality wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As always with a lot of these: it's not saying causation. But what they are saying is, it would be valuable if it was causative wiggles eyebrows Last sentence of the abstract: > Sleep regularity may be a simple, effective target for improving general health and survival.

> Sleep regularity may be a simple, effective target for improving general health and survival. But why would it NOT be? Seems stupid for us to have evolved into beings that need our sleep to be irregular.

There are things that are causal and have little to no effect and things that are causal and have a large effect. I think determining whether and how much something matters, especially when the target audience is "all humans" is a worthwhile endeavor. So it may seem obvious to you, but many many important scientific findings were because somebody looked a little deeper at something that seemed obvious to everyone else.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#219

Post by vector_spaces »

shiftingleft wrote: post #95
petilon wrote: post #82

Magnesium supplementation solved my sleep issues. I have seen many doctors, including sleep specialists, regarding insomnia. They all pointed to one source as the reason for the sleep issues: stress. And they all wanted to put me on prescription sleeping pills. I said no to that. Sleeping pills can cause dependence, and they often treat the symptom rather than the underlying cause. As a software developer, I am used…

> Sleeping pills can cause dependence, and they often treat the symptom rather than the underlying cause. I found gwern's take on Melatonin interesting: https://gwern.net/melatonin A small excerpt: > One might object that they do not wish to tamper with their natural sleep, even if melatonin is a normally-secreted hormone. > Sad to say, I would point out to such readers that they are already profoundly tampering with…

I agree with Gwern in that I think for the vast majority of people, short-term melatonin supplementation is useful and can cause little harm, and it is extremely safe as far as supplements go.

But I don't think it does anyone any favors to oversell the idea that it has "few" or "no" side effects -- it has mild side effects, most commonly reported in the literature are daytime fatigue, headaches and GI symptoms, and also nightmares. Mild doesn't mean it isn't a nonstarter for some people.

It's also important to remember that there are major gaps in what we know about melatonin; notably the effects of chronic supplementation are not well-studied, but earlier final awakening has been documented and this is quite commonly reported in anecdata -- I can contribute a datapoint there, as can most people in my circles who have used it.

To be clear, melatonin is great and useful, but as someone with a rare lifelong chronic sleep disorder who is intimately familiar with this substance, I think it's most useful when we're clear on what we know, what we don't know, and what actually are the limitations on a substance.

Just because downing a bottle of it probably won't cause systemic organ failure or otherwise any kind of medical emergency in most people doesn't mean there aren't tradeoffs to consider when using it, especially if you are sleep-challenged

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration (2023)

#220

Post by bigmadshoe »

Aurornis wrote: post #173
shiftingleft wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sleeping pills can cause dependence, and they often treat the symptom rather than the underlying cause. I found gwern's take on Melatonin interesting: https://gwern.net/melatonin A small excerpt: > One might object that they do not wish to tamper with their natural sleep, even if melatonin is a normally-secreted hormone. > Sad to say, I would point out to such readers that they are already profoundly tampering with…

The comment above just said “sleeping pills” which is ambiguous. Melatonin is an OTC supplement. True “sleeping pills” are usually controlled substances and few doctors would prescribe them as first-line options for a patient who shows up with first time complaints of sleep problems. They won’t be prescribed long-term either. The part of the post that says doctors (plural) tried to prescribe the pills makes me think…

It's worth keeping in mind that melatonin is also prescription-only in many countries e.g. UK, Canada, Japan, Australia.
Post reply on HN