HEALTH NOTES
LACK OF SLEEP HITS HAPPINESS
LOSING just two hours of sleep can stifle positive emotions and stop us feeling happy, according to The National Sleep Foundation.
Its researchers studied the effects of going to bed two hours later than normal but getting up at the usual time.
Volunteers were found to be more impulsive and prone to mistakes the next day.
They also reported experiencing a flattening of normally pleasurable feelings.
DEMENTIA RISK DEBUNKED
DEMENTIA has been linked to use of diazepines (tranquilisers) in the past.
A study followed a quarter of a million adults in Denmark, who had a mental illness diagnosed for the first time between 1996 and 2015.
About three-quarters had used benzodiazepines or “Z-drugs”.
Over six years of follow-up they were no more likely to develop dementia than people who’d never used them.
Further analysis using use of Z-drugs, and whether the drugs taken were short or long acting, also failed to show any increased risk of dementia.
ALZHEIMER’S BREAKTHROUGH
A REVOLUTIONARY new blood test could diagnose Alzheimer’s 20 years before symptoms appear.
Typically, the disorder is only confirmed by the presence of plaques found in the brain after a person dies.
But the inexpensive blood test could show whether these telltale signs are present decades before they suffer any cognitive impairment.
The test works by measuring a protein that indicates whether a person has the disease.
This discovery, made at Lund University in Sweden, could change the way patients are diagnosed and treated.