Najib T. Ayas of the University of British Columbia commenting on the effects of the lack of sleep says, “We’re really only now starting to understand how that is affecting health, and it appears to be significant.”

Sleep: Sleep falls under the health law of “rest” and “taking” the correct amount or “dosage” of regular sleep is like taking your medicine, only its natural medicine designed by the Creator to benefit the body. It follows that sleep deprivation would amount to not taking your “medication” which would be a violation of the Creator’s law and would therefore have negative or unintended consequences.

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Consequences of Sleep Deprivation:

Negatively Affects the Brain: A study using real-time, state-of-the-art imaging conducted by Dr. J. Christian Gillin, MD and his team at the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego VA Medical Center discovered that a sleepy person’s brain works but — accomplishes less. ““Sleep deprivation is bad for your brain when you are trying to do high-level [thinking] tasks,” says Dr. J. Christian Gillin, MD; “It may have serious consequences both on performance and on the way your brain functions.”

Could Affect Obesity: One large study found after “analysis of a nationally representative sample of nearly 10,000 adults… that those between the ages of 32 and 49 who sleep less than seven hours a night are significantly more likely to be obese.” The reasoning is that sleep deprivation possibly caused disruption of hormones that regulate appetite.

Colon Cancer, Breast Cancer, Heart Disease and Diabetes: “Several reports from the Harvard-run Nurses’ Health Study that has linked insufficient or irregular sleep to increased risk for colon cancer, breast cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Other research groups scattered around the country have subsequently found clues that might explain the associations, indications that sleep disruption affects crucial hormones and proteins that play roles in these diseases.”

“Physiologic studies suggest that a sleep deficit may put the body into a state of high alert, increasing the production of stress hormones and driving up blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes, people who are sleep-deprived have elevated levels of substances in the blood that indicate a heightened state of inflammation in the body, which has also recently emerged as a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.”

“After several studies found that people who work at night appear unusually prone to breast and colon cancer, researchers investigating the possible explanation for this association found exposure to light at night reduces levels of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is believed to protect against cancer by affecting levels of other hormones, such as estrogen.

‘Melatonin can prevent tumor cells from growing — it’s cancer-protective,” said Eva S. Schernhammer of Harvard Medical School, who has conducted a series of studies on volunteers in sleep laboratories. “The theory is, if you are exposed to light at night, on average you will produce less melatonin, increasing your cancer risk.”‘

“Other researchers are exploring a possible link to other malignancies, including prostate cancer. ‘There’s absolutely no reason it should be limited to breast cancer, and it wouldn’t necessarily be restricted to people who work night shifts. People with disrupted sleep or people who are up late at night or get up frequently in the night could potentially have the same sort of effect,” said Scott Davis of the University of Washington.”‘

“Based on our findings, we believe that if you lose sleep that your body needs, then you produce these inflammatory markers that on a chronic basis can create low-grade inflammation and predispose you to cardiovascular events and a shorter life span,” said Alexandros N. Vgontzas of Pennsylvania State University”

DEATH : “The strongest evidence out there right now is for the risk of overall mortality, but we also see the association for a number of specific causes,” said Sanjay R. Patel of Harvard Medical School, who led one of the studies, involving more than 82,000 nurses, that found an increased risk of death among those who slept less than six hours a night. “Now we’re starting to get insights into what’s happening in the body when you don’t get enough sleep.”‘

“Lack of sleep disrupts every physiologic function in the body,” said Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago. “We have nothing in our biology that allows us to adapt to this behavior.”‘ “We have in our society this idea that you can just get by without sleep or manipulate when you sleep without any consequences,” said Lawrence Epstein, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “What we’re finding is that’s just not true.”‘

“It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” Psalms 127:2

www.washingtonpost.com/article–By Rob Stein Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 9, 2005; Page A01

www.WEBMD.COM/article

www.washingtonpost.com/article–By Rob Stein Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 9, 2005; Page A01

ibid.

Ibid.

ibid.

Ibid.

Keith Henry is a medical missionary herbalist, and Naturopathic Doctor. He is the Director of Phase 3 Ministries Inc., based in Orlando, FL.