Bad Dreams Could Be a Early Sign of Parkinson’s


Darkness in the Thoughts Concept of Dream Nightmare According to a study, having frequent nightmares may be an early sign of Parkinson's disease.


Researchers at the University of Birmingham believe that older persons who start to have nightmares or unsettling dreams may be exhibiting the early signs of Parkinson's disease.

Recent research that was published in the journal eClinicalMedicine found that those who frequently experienced nightmares were twice as likely to eventually receive a Parkinson's diagnosis as those who did not. The study involved a cohort of elderly males.

The prospect of using nightmares as a risk factor for Parkinson's has not been investigated, despite previous studies showing that persons with Parkinson's disease had more nightmares and unsettling dreams than adults in the general population.

"Although it can be incredibly helpful to diagnose Parkinson's disease early, there are very few risk factors, and many of these need expensive hospital tests or are highly prevalent and non-specific, such as diabetes," said Dr. Abidemi Otaiku, the study's lead author.

The relevance of unpleasant dreams and nightmares may suggest that people who experience changes to their dreams as they age - without any evident reason - should seek medical care, the author writes, "but we need to conduct further research in this area."

The team examined information from a sizable US cohort study that collected information over a 12-year period from 3818 older men who were living independently. The guys filled out a variety of questionnaires at the start of the study, one of which asked about the quality of their sleep.

Following the trial, it was determined whether participants who reported at least one dreadful dream each week were more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

91 Parkinson's patients were discovered during the observational period. The researchers found that those who frequently had nightmares had twice as much of the disorder as those who did not. In the first five years of the research, the bulk of diagnoses were made. The likelihood of developing Parkinson's disease was more than three times higher among participants who frequently experienced nightmares throughout this time.

The findings show that older persons who would eventually be given a Parkinson's diagnosis are likely to start having nightmares and disturbing dreams a few years before exhibiting the defining symptoms of Parkinson's, such as tremors, stiffness, and slowness of movement.

The study also demonstrates that dreams might provide vital clues about the composition and operation of our brains, making them a promising area for further study in the field of neuroscience.

Electroencephalography (EEG) will be used by the researchers to examine the biological causes of changing dream content. They will also investigate potential connections between dreams and other neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and replicate the results in bigger and more diverse cohorts.

Parkinson's patients may live longer if they consume a diet high in berries and red wine.

By UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do You Sleep on Your Back or Side? Here's The Research on 'Optimal' Sleep Positions

Image
William Dement, a renowned sleep researcher at Stanford University, is quoted as saying that after 50 years of study, the only reason he can think of for why we sleep is "because we become sleepy." Sleep certainly matters for our health and wellbeing even though it may be, as one researcher put it, "the sole major habit in quest of a function." Do we, however, have it right? What do studies on sleeping positions say? Is there a proper sleeping position? The majority of people favor sleeping on their side. This is encouraging news because people who sleep on their backs are more likely to have trouble falling asleep or breathing during the night. Most of the time, we have a tendency to shift around quite a bit at night. According to a study involving 664 sleepers, on average, participants slept on their side 54% of the time, their back 37% of the time, and their front 7% of the time. Males are more likely to change positions throughout the night and move their arms, ...
Read more

New DNA Research Unlocks Secrets of Native Rodents’ Rat Race to New Lands

Image
More than 150 different native rodent species from Australia, New Guinea, and Melanesian islands have had their DNA sequenced in recent studies. It provides a fuller understanding of their connections and the circumstances surrounding their expansion throughout the Pacific. The Australian National University's (ANU) Dr. Emily Roycroft, the study's lead author, said native rodents are an interesting but frequently underappreciated evolutionary group. Dr. Roycroft noted that over 150 species in Australia and New Guinea are unique to those regions and include the rakali, sometimes known as the "water rat," which is frequently spotted swimming in the lakes near Canberra. We now know relatively little about the history and development of native rodents, particularly those found in New Guinea. In order to obtain DNA from museum specimens up to 180 years old, including several extinct and secretive species, the study team developed a novel technique. "One Guadalcanal ra...
Read more

A Briefcase-Sized Box Is Already Making Oxygen on Mars

Image
Currently, the Martian atmosphere is in no way hospitable to Earthlings. It is formed primarily of carbon dioxide and is over 100 times less dense than Earth's atmosphere. It would soon stop breathing completely for any individuals who tried to breathe in it. A modest device, about the size of a suitcase, has been consistently extracting breathable oxygen from the Martian atmosphere on that sandy, arid, alien world. In order to manufacture breathing air for a human expedition to the red planet, it is the first demonstration of the processing of in situ resources for human use on another world. Its name is MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Experiment), and it is a device that utilizes electrolysis to separate Martian carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen. It is mounted inside NASA's Perseverance rover. According to the researchers, MOXIE produced oxygen seven times as much between February 2021, when Perseverance arrived, until the end of 2021. Acco...
Read more