Lack Of Sleep Can Lead To Disease

My What's New(s) In Science presentation was about not getting enough sleep at night and how that could lead to disease if repeated each night.  I originally found an article about this topic from the source sciencenews.com.  When browsing this website, which describes itself as a "magazine of the society about science for the public," I found out that all stories relate to science news, both old and new.  The second source I found about this topic was from the website sciencedaily.com.  This website was described as "your source for the latest research news," this article dealt with chronic sleep disorders and was similar to the first source.  They both deal with late nights causing disease, however sciencedaily examined more of a current disorder while sciencenews wrote more of a feature piece on the subject.  

The first article talked about how people who enjoy staying up late into the morning hours can be prone to acquire some diseases.  Some examples include diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.  Sleep deprivation happens when the body feels tired and thus increases inflammation of certain proteins in cells in the blood.  These proteins are called NF Kappa B and are more frequently seen in women than men when sleep deprivation occurs.  These levels can be brought back to normal once a person has had a healthy night's sleep.  A scientist can draw blood from a patient to analyze the protein cells and see if constant inflammation is occurring.

The second article, sciencedaily, reports on an experiment dealing with people who thought that they could be suffering from chronic sleep disorder.  Having this restriction harms cardiac activity in a person which can lead to cardiovascular disease.  This study was researched at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, also known as the APSS.  There the APSS tested the hypothesis that if one does not receive enough sleep for a length of time harmful repercussions may occur.   The experiment consisted of 39 men and women who slept for a normal amount of hours each night and then every night after the amount of hours was shortened by 5.  This went on for a total of 5 nights but the APSS saw that changes were made in behavior and attitude after only the second night.  The main reason this study was performed and researched was to see if sleep deprivation is really a large factor in a person's health.

The two articles were written differently but dealt with the same topic.  The first source dealt more in depth with the chemical aspect of finding what could be affecting a person in the blood stream.  While the second source did more of a hands on experiment using real subjects to see what their response would be after a short time and then relating this to long term affects.

This topic matters to a college student because college kids are usually up late for a variety of reasons.  This topic should matter to everyone who is concerned with their health.  Sleep is an easy thing to do, and if you can find the time to get an extra 2 to 3 hours of sleep each night it can greatly affect a persons health.  This topic appeared in both sciencenews.com and sciencedaily.com because the study and research of sleep deprivation is directly connected with science.  Without having a variety of science websites this information would have never been able to reach the common person.  This news could be revolutionary if more people knew that disease can be a factor if the body does not receive enough sleep.  I think that after reading these articles more people will do their best to try and get more sleep at night to reduce those risks and stay healthy.