Sleepless in Japan: How insomnia kills

February 9, 2018

De Gruyter

Lay people tend to think that insomnia is usually a symptom of something else, like stress, a bad diet or a sedentary lifestyle, but this may not be true at all. It is possible that insomnia itself causes many of the conditions that it is seen as a symptom of. Using previous research that shows that insomnia causes a decrease in blood flow in the front dorsal lobe of the brain, which correlates with depression, the authors seek to establish a link between insomnia and depression.

Depression is a hidden killer. It is a condition that affects people all around the world. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in Japan. The yearly financial cost to the Japanese economy of depression and suicide is estimated by UPI to be USD 4.1 billion. Middle-aged males, one of the groups that was found to suffer the highest rates of insomnia are also the likeliest to commit suicide.

In March of 2011, over 7000 hospital staff in ten hospitals in the district of Rosai were given a self-administered anonymous questionnaire. The questions included information about the respondent's gender, age, and medical profession, as well as questions about their sleeping history two weeks prior to responding to the survey, as well as detailing their overtime work, and their history of disease and chronic pain. It also asked them to assess their own feelings of depression and fatigue.

The results were alarming. Thirteen percent of men, and nineteen percent of women suffered from insomnia, and the medical profession with the highest rate of insomnia were nurses at twenty percent. For comparison, about ten percent of Americans suffer from chronic insomnia.

Chronic insomnia can lead to depression, and a better understanding of the link between the two conditions could be used to improve treatment, and prevent the condition from worsening while strengthening the world economy. The hope is a survey will be developed for healthcare professionals (and other high-stress professions) that can identify insomnia before it becomes a problem.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180209114224.htm

Insomnia May Perpetuate Depression in Some Elderly Patients

April 4, 2008

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

In addition to being a risk factor for a depressive episode, persistent insomnia may perpetuate the illness in some elderly patients, and especially in those receiving standard care for depression in primary care settings, according to a new study.

According to the results, patients with persistent insomnia were 1.8 to 3.5 times more likely to remain depressed, compared with patients with no insomnia. The findings were more robust in patients receiving usual care for depression than in patients receiving enhanced care. The findings were also stronger in subjects who had major depressive disorder as opposed to those with dysthymia alone.

"Even when depression was identified and treated in the primary care setting, the older adults in this study were more likely to remain depressed if they also exhibited persistent insomnia.

The finding that this risk was higher in the usual-care group suggests that enhanced depression care may partially mitigate the perpetuating effects of insomnia on depression," said Dr. Pigeon.

"While the findings make intuitive sense, until relatively recently insomnia was often considered a symptom that dissipated without active intervention once a primary condition like depression was treated, instead of being considered a distinct clinical entity that might affect a primary disorder. This study has several limitations, not the least of which are that it is not a causal study nor does it unequivocally answer the question of whether insomnia that presents with depression is a symptom or a co-morbid disorder. What seems most likely is that insomnia is indeed simply a symptom in some cases, but clearly a disorder requiring its own treatment focus in other cases."

Not sleeping well can lead to a number of problems. Older adults who have poor nighttime sleep are more likely to have a depressed mood, attention and memory problems, excessive daytime sleepiness, more nighttime falls and use more over-the-counter or prescription sleep aids. In addition, recent studies associate lack of sleep with serious health problems such as an increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080401081930.htm

Insomnia Linked to Depression in Young Adults

April 3, 2008

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

A new study confirms the persistent nature of insomnia and the increased risk of subsequent depression among individuals with insomnia.

According to the results, the annual prevalence of one-month insomnia increased gradually over time, with a cumulative prevalence rate of 20 percent and a greater than two-fold risk among women. In 40 percent of subjects, insomnia developed into more chronic forms over time. Insomnia either with or without comorbid depression was highly stable over time. Insomnia lasting two weeks or longer predicted major depressive episodes and major depressive disorder at subsequent interviews.

Seventeen to 50 percent of subjects with insomnia lasting two weeks or longer developed a major depressive episode reported in a later interview. "Pure" insomnia and "pure" depression were not longitudinally related to each other, whereas insomnia comorbid with depression was longitudinally related to both.

"We used to think that insomnia was most often just a symptom of depression. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that insomnia is not just a symptom of depression, but that it may actually precede depression. In other words, people who have insomnia but no depression are at increased risk for later developing depression. This study adds to our knowledge by including a much longer follow-up period than most previous studies," said Daniel J. Buysse, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh, lead author of the paper.

"We were also able to look separately at insomnia alone, depression alone, and combined insomnia-depression. The results show that insomnia seems to be followed by depression more consistently than the other way around. In addition, we found that insomnia tended to be a chronic problem that gets more persistent over time, whereas depression was a more intermittent problem."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080401081937.htm