Sleep Archive

Ask the doctor

Q. I've been taking vitamin D supplements for several years because my doctor said they might help me live longer. Am I wasting my money, or even causing myself harm?

A. You're right to be skeptical. Vitamin supplements of all types repeatedly have been tested for theoretical health benefits, and often the studies have shown none. There's no doubt that vitamin D supplements can help prevent or treat osteoporosis. Theoretically, they might reduce the risk of various diseases. What about the question you asked: whether vitamin D supplements help you live longer?

A wide range of gadgets and equipment can help you avoid injury and maintain independence.

You used to hop into the tub or shower for a quick wash and rinse off, and then be on your way. These days, maybe knee arthritis makes it hard to lift your legs to get into a tub; shoulder pain makes it hard to reach up and wash your hair; or imbalance puts you at high risk for a fall, especially in a slippery setting. Take heart: lots of tools can make bathing safer and easier.

Instant upgrades

A few tools from a drugstore or big-box store can help you make immediate improvements to your bathing routine.

Simple steps can help you avoid complications that come from breathing cold, dry air.

A blast of cold air in the face as you step outside is a brisk reminder that the harshness of winter has arrived. And a deep breath of icy air can be risky for people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD — which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema). The cold temperatures can trigger symptoms such as wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath.

Even in healthy people, cold, dry air can irritate the airways and lungs. It causes the upper airways to narrow, which makes it a little harder to breathe.

A sleep shortfall can be hard on your heart. Make sure you're getting enough quality snooze time.

Maybe you stay up past midnight watching TV or checking your smartphone while lounging in bed. Or perhaps you snuggle under the covers and close your eyes at a decent hour, but then toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. Whatever the reason, the results are familiar to many people — feeling unrefreshed and maybe even a bit cranky when you wake up the next morning. According to the CDC, about one in three adults doesn't get enough sleep.

"Some people have trouble falling asleep. But others choose to stay awake and end up chronically sleep deprived," says Dr. Sogol Javaheri, a sleep specialist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. When you don't sleep enough, feeling tired and bleary-eyed is only part of the problem. People who consistently get less than six hours of sleep nightly face a higher risk of heart disease as well as other, often co-occurring conditions such as diabetes and obesity. The exact mechanisms aren't fully understood, but disruptions in blood pressure and blood sugar regulation likely play a role. Insufficient sleep also appears to raise stress hormone levels and inflammation, which also strain the heart.

These three exercises can help make functional fitness part of your regular routine.

As part of everyday living, you spend a lot of time bending, reaching, lifting, twisting, turning, and squatting, without even thinking about it. These movements show up in everything from carrying groceries, to playing with your grandkids, to just checking if the coast is clear when you back out of the driveway.

The ability to do these ordinary activities and movements is called functional fitness, and it can determine how active, healthy, and independent you are as you get older.

In the journals

Downing a protein drink after a workout is often seen as the best way to reduce muscle soreness and speed up recovery. However, this may not be the case, suggests a study published online Aug. 21, 2019, by Human Kinetics.

Researchers found that high-protein drinks did not increase the rate of muscle recovery following resistance training when compared with a carbohydrate-only drink. They recruited 30 men who had at least one year of resistance training experience. The men performed a prescribed workout and afterward had either a whey protein hydrolysate-based drink, a milk-based drink — both of which contained 32 grams of protein — or a carbohydrate-only drink. (All the beverages had the same amount of calories.)

In the journals

Adopt a dog and get a healthier heart. That's the conclusion of a study published in the September 2019 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Researchers looked at 1,769 people ages 25 to 64 with no history of heart disease. Participants' overall cardiovascular health was assessed based on several health markers, such as body mass index, diet, physical activity, smoking, blood pressure, blood sugar, and total cholesterol levels.

A study shows that, for many people, less is more when it comes to vitamin D.

There's no question that vitamin D can help build strong bones. But there may be a sweet spot when it comes to how much.

A study published in the Aug. 27 issue of JAMA found that, compared with people who took moderate amounts of vitamin D, adults who took large amounts daily not only didn't see additional gains in bone density, but in some cases ended up worse off.

Ask the doctors

Q. I have terrible allergies every winter. What can I do to make them more tolerable this year?

A. Unlike fall or spring allergies, which are often responses to outdoor allergens, such as pollen or ragweed, most winter allergies are triggered by substances inside your home. Common indoor allergens include dust mites, mold, and pet dander, and they can prompt a host of symptoms, from a runny nose and sneezing to a sore throat and itchy eyes. While these indoor allergens are present year-round, allergies can flare up in the winter because you're cooped up in the house with the windows closed. Your home's furnace may also be circulating these substances through the air once the heat kicks on.

Incorporating brief spurts of high-intensity physical activity throughout your day can help you move to the next fitness level.

If you're not very active but looking to move more, a new strategy might help you get going. Called high-intensity incidental physical activity, or HIIPA for short, it's a new take on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) — only you might find yourself vigorously pushing a vacuum instead of going for a run.

HIIPA (not to be confused with the HIPAA health care privacy rule) is a term coined in an editorial published online Sept. 3 by the British Journal of Sports Medicine. It borrows from the idea behind HIIT, which is a workout that alternates between high-intensity and low-intensity activity. But instead of performing these high-intensity intervals during exercise, HIIPA encourages otherwise sedentary people to add a few moderately strenuous physical activities during the course of their regular day. Anything that raises your heart rate counts — walking up a flight of stairs instead of taking the elevator, carrying in a load of groceries, or doing some heavy cleaning around the house. The editorial's authors, a team of international experts, say the goal is to perform an activity that gets you a little out of breath.