Neurim Pharmaceuticals presented the preliminary results of a large-scale Phase III study of Circadin(R) 2mg, prolonged release melatonin in insomnia, demonstrating long term efficacy and safety in elderly patients. The results were reported in the Late Breaking Abstracts session of SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, (APSS) held at Seattle, Washington. The SLEEP meeting attracts the largest audience of sleep specialists in world.

Circadin(R) is a novel sleep medicine that has been approved by the European Commission pharmaceutical regulatory agency and the Israeli Ministry of Health for the short-term treatment of primary insomnia, characterized by poor quality of sleep in patients who are aged 55 and over. The approval is based on clinical studies showing positive effects on sleep quality, sleep induction, and most importantly next day alertness and functioning.

The new double blind placebo controlled trial with more than 790 insomnia patients aged 18-80, shows that 6 months continuous treatment with Circadin(R) is both safe and efficacious. The trial demonstrated improvements in sleep latency, quality of sleep and morning alertness particularly in elderly patients, with no withdrawal symptoms and rebound insomnia. “We are very excited about these preliminary Phase III results” said Professor Nava Zisapel, CSO of Neurim Pharmaceuticals, “because Circadin(R), previously shown to be a unique short term treatment for poor sleep quality, has now demonstrated long term efficacy and safety.”

About Circadin(R)

Circadin(R) is the first and only IP-protected prolonged-release melatonin to be approved as an ethical drug by health authorities. Administration of Circadin(R) to patients with primary insomnia improves sleep quality and morning alertness and facilitates sleep onset in patients aged 55 or over. Currently commercialized in Europe by H.Lundbeck A/S and Nycomed, and in Israel by Teva, Circadin(R) is undergoing registration in US, Asia-Pacific and Latin American markets.

About Neurim Pharmaceuticals

Neurim Pharmaceuticals is headquartered in Israel with offices in Switzerland and the UK. The company was founded in 1991 and is focused on drug discovery and development of treatments for age-related disorders, primarily in the central nervous system (CNS).

Source: Neurim Pharmaceuticals LTD

If you are pregnant and your mate complains your frequent snoring is rattling the bedroom windows, you may have bigger problems than an annoyed, sleep-deprived partner.

A new study from researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has found that women who reported frequent snoring during their pregnancy were more likely to develop gestational diabetes — a condition than can cause health problems for the mother and baby. The study also found pregnancy increases the likelihood that a woman will snore.

This is the first study to report a link between snoring and gestational diabetes.

For the study, 189 healthy women completed a sleep survey at the time of enrollment (six to 20 weeks gestation) and in the third trimester.

Pregnant women who were frequent snorers had a 14.3 percent chance of developing gestational diabetes, while women who did not snore had a 3.3 percent chance. Even when researchers controlled for other factors that could contribute to gestational diabetes such as body mass index, age, race and ethnicity, frequent snoring was still associated with the disease.

Principal investigator Francesca Facco, M.D., a fellow at Northwestern’s Feinberg School, presented her findings at the SLEEP 2009 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies June 11.

“Sleep disturbances during pregnancy may negatively affect your cardiovascular system or metabolism,” said Facco, who in August will become an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Feinberg School and a maternal and fetal medicine physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

“Snoring may be a sign of poor air flow and diminished oxygenation during sleep that can cause a cascade of events in your body,” Facco said. “This may activate your sympathetic nervous system, so your blood pressure rises at night. This can also provoke inflammatory and metabolic changes, increasing the risk of diabetes or poor sugar tolerance.”

The study also showed more women became frequent snorers as their pregnancies progressed. Early in pregnancy, 11 percent of women in the study reported frequent snoring; by the third trimester, the number rose to 16.5 percent. Frequent snoring was defined as snoring three or more nights a week.

Facco said snoring during pregnancy may be triggered by weight gain and edema (a buildup of fluid), which can increase airway resistance. Exactly how the snoring is linked to gestational diabetes is not yet known.

About 4 percent of pregnant women develop gestational diabetes, a condition in which women without previously diagnosed diabetes develop high blood sugar levels during pregnancy. Babies born to mothers with gestational diabetes are at increased risk of problems such as being large for gestational age, which may lead to delivery complications. These babies may also have low blood sugar levels and are at increased risk of becoming obese or developing impaired sugar tolerance or metabolic syndrome later in life.

While gestational diabetes usually resolves after pregnancy, women who develop it are at higher risk for type 2 diabetes later in life.

Facco said further studies are needed to understand the association between snoring and gestational diabetes and to develop interventions to treat sleep disorders during pregnancy.

“If snoring is bothering a woman who is pregnant, she should seek a consultation with a sleep specialist,” Facco said.

In related study, also presented at the SLEEP 2009 meeting, Facco found sleep disturbances such as restless legs syndrome and insomnia increase significantly during pregnancy.

Source:
Marla Paul

Northwestern University

According to a research abstract presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, sleep selectively preservers memories that are emotionally salient and relevant to future goals when sleep follows soon after learning. Effects persist for as long as four months after the memory is created.

Results indicate that the sleeping brain seems to calculate what is most important about an experience and selects only what is adaptive for consolidation and long term storage. Across long delays of 24 hours, or even three-to-four months, sleeping soon after learning preserved the trade-off (compared to waiting an entire day before going to sleep).

According to lead author, Jessica Payne, PhD, of Harvard Medical School in Boston MA, It was surprising that in addition to seeing the enhancement of negative memories over neutral scenes, there was also selectivity within the emotional scenes themselves, with sleep only consolidating what is most relevant, adaptive and useful about the scenes. It was even more surprising that this selectivity lasted for a full day and even months later if sleep came soon after learning.

“It may be that the chemical and physiological aspects of sleep underlying memory consolidation are more effective if a particular memory is ‘tagged’ shortly prior to sleeping,” said Payne.

The study included data from 44 college students between the ages of 18 and 22 who encoded scenes with neutral or negative objects on a neutral background and were tested on memory for objects and backgrounds 24 hours later. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the ’sleep first’ group, which trained and tested on the scenes between the hours of 7 and 9 p.m. while the other half was assigned to the ‘wake-first’ group which trained and tested on the scenes between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. Four months later, participants were once again tested on their memory of the scenes.

Negative, but not neutral objects were better remembered in the sleep-first than wake-first group. Backgrounds associated with negative, but not neutral objects were more poorly remembered in the sleep-first compared to the wake-first group. Thus, while negative object memory was enhanced in the sleep-first group compared to the wake-first group, memory for the backgrounds on which they were presented was impaired in the sleep-first group compared to the wake-first group. This pattern persisted four months later, with emotional objects being preferentially retained in the sleep-first group only.

Payne said that sleep is beneficial for memory and that we remember things best when we ’stagger’ our learning episodes across time.

Abstract Title: Sleep Promotes Lasting Changes in Memory for Emotional Scenes
Presentation Date: Thursday, June 11
Category: Behavior, Cognition & Dreams
Abstract ID: 1244

Source:
Kelly Wagner

American Academy of Sleep Medicine