Snoring relief articles

STANFORD, Calif., Dec 14, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — A fruit fly’s immune system can tell time, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found, and how hard it punches back against infections depends on whether the fly is snoozing or cruising. The discovery could have implications for human health, too.
Working with jerry-rigged, light-bulb-laden shoeboxes to manipulate the flies’ daily cycle and with syringes small enough to inject measured amounts of germs into the wee winged ones, the investigators have shown that the insects’ immune response waxes and wanes with the diurnal oscillations called circadian rhythms.
Mimi Shirasu-Hiza, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory of David Schneider, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, will present the findings Dec. 14 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology, held in San Francisco.
Insects do not have the advanced artillery that characterizes vertebrate immune systems — antibody-secreting B-cells, and killer and helper T-cells that precisely target specific pathogens for attack. But they do share with vertebrate organisms a primitive, but critical, rough-and-ready response to unwanted microbes: the innate immune system. This all-important first line of defense, without which we wouldn’t survive an infection for the week or two it takes for our more-sophisticated antibodies and T-cells to kick into high gear, whirls into action at once, based on its ability to recognize generic patterns that distinguish microbial pests.
One feature of the fruit fly’s innate immune system is the presence of circulatory cells called phagocytes that, like our own white blood cells, engulf and digest bacteria. In their new research, Shirasu-Hiza and Schneider have found that phagocytes’ activity oscillates throughout the day.
Like the mosquito, platypus and whitetail deer, fruit flies are crepuscular — they are most active at dawn and dusk, tend to roam a bit during the daytime, and engage in what passes for sleep during the nighttime. (Flies don’t have eyelids, so it’s hard to tell if they’re really asleep. Researchers instead characterize cyclical patterns of rest and activity in terms of the number of movements per five-minute cycle.)
Shirasu-Hiza flummoxed flies into a 12-hour, circadian-rhythm phase shift by raising them in shoeboxes, wired by Schneider with timers that controlled batteries of light bulbs. This enabled the researchers to infect two sets of flies (from “nighttime” or “daytime” shoeboxes) in a single experimental session. This Shirasu-Hiza did, using syringes fashioned from glass capillary tubes heated and then stretched so that they were extremely thin, but still hollow. Armed with these syringes — which are powered by a machine called a “Picospritzer” — she spent hours on end in a dark room lit only by a red bulb (red light doesn’t seem to perturb the daily rhythms of the flies) while injecting, one by one, multiple hundreds of tiny, week-old male flies (half of them sleeping, the other half awake) per session with precise volumes of solutions containing different pathogenic bacteria.
In previously published research, when Shirasu-Hiza and her colleagues had infected normal flies with measured doses of two noted human pathogens, Streptococcus pneumoniae or Listeria monocytogenes, the sickened flies’ circadian rhythms were disturbed. They stumbled around more randomly, and stood still for relatively shorter periods. Moreover, genetic mutants lacking circadian cycles of rest and activity died more quickly on infection with these pathogens than normal flies did.
In the new round of experiments, the researchers observed that, consistent with those earlier findings, the activity of phagocytes in normal fruit flies oscillates with their circadian rhythms. Flies infected with S. pneumonia or L. monocytogenes during resting periods (”nighttime”) also survive significantly longer than those infected during active periods (”daytime”). Further, by injecting fluorescently labeled dead bacteria into flies at different points in their circadian cycle, the investigators could see increased phagocyte function at night for those two pathogens: there was an increase in the number of bacteria ingested by phagocytes in flies infected during resting versus active phases. Likewise, circadian-mutant flies “trapped” in the active phase had decreased phagocyte function, demonstrating that phagocyte activity is subject to regulation by circadian proteins whose activity, in turn, is disrupted by these mutations.
Strangely, though, infecting the flies with a third bacterial pathogen, Burkholderia cepacia, produced the opposite result. Circadian-mutant flies coped better with the infection than did normal flies, suggesting that in this case, a disrupted circadian rhythm might actually be good for the flies.
That poses an intellectual challenge, Schneider said: “If a sick fruit fly were to walk into my office, and it were infected with Burkholderia, I would know that I should deprive it of sleep. But I don’t know the rules for people. In hospitals, nurses and orderlies are going in and out all the time, and you never get any sleep. Is that good, or bad? There are probably conditions where that’s going to make things much worse. But maybe there are some conditions where it’s actually better for you to have your sleep continuously interrupted. We’re trying to figure out the rules for the fly, and hopefully someone else can translate it into human biology: Do they put you in a quiet room, or do they keep coming in and fiddling with your IV on purpose?”
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions — Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center’s Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu.
SOURCE: Stanford University Medical Center
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We all long for a quiet night’s rest. But, for some of us, the snoring just blasts our eardrums!

It’s loud and it’s irritating. But, is it serious?

Patti from Pitman, N.J. e-mailed:

“My snoring wakes me up. Could this be a warning of a problem?”

Sometimes, snoring can just be annoying to your bed partner and annoying to yourself. But, sometimes, snoring can be the indication of a more serious problem like sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a common condition that leads to interrupted breathing for very short periods of time during sleep, usually the result of narrowed airways. Untreated, it can lead to health problems including, high blood pressure, memory problems, weight gain, and headaches.

“It’s associated with nighttime awaking or daytime sleepiness, so if that’s something that is occurring where you snore at night, you awake and feel tired, you’re sleepy during the day, you should talk to your doctor about perhaps having a sleep study done,” Dr. Helena Schotland said.

Doctors may recommend a device called a CPAP, which helps keep the airway open.

Darrell from Philadelphia asked:

“I have sleep apnea, but the device hurts my nose.”

“Just because you don’t like your particular mask doesn’t mean that you are stuck with it. There are a huge number of masks. Some are nasal masks that go over your nose. Some are nose and mouth. There are also little nasal pillows that are just little prongs that go over your nostril that are great for people with claustrophobia,” Dr. Schotland said.

Other treatments include:

Weight loss
Sleeping on your side instead of on your back
Upper airway surgery
Nighttime dental device, similar to a retainer, that pull the lower jaw forward

Immediate release 14TH November 08

NEW PRODUCT PROMISES RESTFUL NIGHTS FOR THOUSANDS OF SNORERS

A UK company has launched a unique new product designed to offer relief to thousands of people who suffer from a particular type of snoring

The Adkins snoring aid is targeted at “nose snorers” and uses a totally new method which restricts the air flow through the nose.

The product is made of a medical grade soft plastic, consists of a pair of conjoined non latex balls which the user inserts into the nostrils before going to sleep.

Before this discovery, the main school of thought in snoring treatments has been to open up the airway through the nostrils.

Sleep deprivation expert Chris Grant is the man behind the new product. He explained how it works: “The restricted airflow through the nose encourages mouth breathing which reduces the incidence of snoring in those whose snorring is caused by excess airflow across the soft tissues at the back of the nose.”

Designed and produced in the UK, the new product has been successfully tested by many snorers to date and has been endorsed by many users
including a medical doctor.

Dr David Collinge of Oxford confirms that the Adkins snboring aid worked for his wife. He said, “She calls the Adkins snoring aid the “miracle balls” and I must agree. This new product has stopped her snoring, when everything else had failed.”

Former Royal Protection Officer Les Blyth, says, “I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. This new product stopped my snoring and I now sleep soundly with my wife in the same bedroom. It is a brilliant idea, being both comfortable and simple to use.”

Amy Harrington from Essex says, “We never imagined that this new innovation would alleviate snoring to such an extent. Now that we sleep
well, we even feel and look better too.”

Tony Jones from London “My partner suggested I try this new product, and I was happy to give it a try especially if it gave me the opportunity to save my relationship. The Adkins snoring aid certainly stopped my snoring.”

Chris Grant added, “Anyone who needs help to stop snorig should try this simple test. Get your partner to gently pinch your nose when you are snoring. If the snoring stops then you’re a “nose snorer”. The Adkins snoring aid could be the solution you’ve been waiting for.”
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