Latest news with #UniversityofPennsylvaniaPerelmanSchoolofMedicine
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Why You Keep Waking Up at 3 a.m.—And What Your Body's Trying to Tell You
According to a 2025 U.S. News and World Reports survey, a whopping 89% of adults in the U.S. wake up regularly during the night. This shows that falling asleep is only half the battle when it comes to getting adequate rest; staying asleep presents its own challenges. According to sleep doctors we talked to, there are several different reasons why this happens; there isn't one universal cause. But in every instance, it can be frustrating and often hard to fall back asleep. Here, sleep doctors share the different reasons why people wake up in the middle of the night and their tips for what to do if you can't fall back asleep. 🩺SIGN UP for tips to stay healthy & fit with the top moves, clean eats, health trends & more delivered right to your inbox twice a week💊 If you like to wind down in the evening with an alcoholic drink, your relaxing habit may be sabotaging your sleep. 'Alcohol can disturb sleep,' says Dr. Richard Schwab, MD, the Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. 'While alcohol can help someone fall asleep faster, it causes an increase in heart rate, which leads to sleep disturbances in the second half of the night." He explains that this happens with every type of alcohol; it doesn't matter if it's whiskey, wine, beer or something else, saying, 'When alcohol is metabolized in the body, it increases body temperature. This causes the heart to beat faster, which is likely the reason why it can interrupt sleep." Dr. William Lu, MD,the Medical Director at Dreem Health, also says drinking alcohol can lead to waking up in the middle of the night. "Avoiding alcohol is always beneficial for your sleep," he explains. "You may be able to fall asleep easier with alcohol, but in the back half of the night, alcohol has a stimulating effect which in turn can cause earlier wakeups. It is also known that alcohol decreases the amount of deep sleep that you get causing you to feel more tired and less refreshed in the morning." Scientific research backs up the connection between alcohol and sleep disturbances, showing that alcohol disrupts sleep in several ways, including interrupting circadian rhythm, increasing breathing-related sleep events such as snoring and triggering insomnia. Dr. Schwab explains that alcohol interferes with REM sleep, which is important for maintaining optimal brain health. Related: Both doctors say that many common medications—both over-the-counter drugs and prescription medications—are associated with sleep disturbances. Dr. Schwab says this includes antidepressants, corticosteroids (which are used to treat arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and allergies, among other health conditions), beta blockers for hypertension, antihistamines, decongestants and Alzheimer's medications. Additionally, Dr. Schwab says that Benadryl can cause sleep disturbances. He explains taht some people with insomnia take Benadryl because it can help them fall asleep, but he emphasizes that this medication can lead to waking up in the second half of the night. This also happens with many other 'PM' medications, like Tylenol PM. If a medication is causing you to have sleep disturbances, Dr. Schwab recommends taking it in the morning instead of at night. If the problem persists, talk to your healthcare provider. Related: If you consistently wake up in the middle of the night, you could have sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that roughly 30 million Americans have. 'Sleep apnea causes a lot of sleep fragmentation and a lot of people don't know they have it, especially if they sleep alone,' Dr. Schwab explains. Symptoms of sleep apnea include loud snoring, times when you stop breathing during sleep, gasping for air during sleep, waking up with dry mouth, morning headaches and feeling sleepy during the day. If you think you have sleep apnea, talk to your healthcare provider. Sleep apnea isn't the only health condition that can lead to waking up in the middle of the night. Dr. Schwab says that chronic heartburn, chronic pain, COPD or lung disease and other chronic conditions can all cause sleep disturbances. Additionally, menopause symptoms such as night sweats can make it hard to stay asleep. If any of these health conditions are disrupting your sleep, talk to your doctor about possible solutions. Dr. Schwab points out that there are all sorts of environmental reasons why you may wake up in the middle of the night too. Pets, kids, leaving the TV on at night and outdoor noises can all lead to waking up in the middle of the night. Related: Waking up in the middle of the night is frustrating enough, but when you can't fall back asleep, it's even more annoying. If this happens, Dr. Schwab says reading a book in very low light until you get sleepy may be a better solution than lying in bed in frustration. "I encourage people to get out of bed and to go somewhere different such as the couch or another room. Do some quiet activities until you begin feeling sleepy again and then go back to bed to try to sleep again," Dr. Lu adds. If you wake up tired because you didn't sleep well the night before, Dr. Schwab says to resist the urge to nap, which could lead to yet another night of poor sleep. Having general good sleep hygiene tips in place can also help with sleep, he explains. With this in mind, avoid using electronics in the evening, don't sleep with the TV on and keep your bedroom dark and cool. Not getting enough sleep greatly impacts both physical and mental health. If you are struggling to get good, consistent sleep, it's worth it to pinpoint the reason why and troubleshoot from there. That way, you can wake up each day truly well-rested and ready for anything the day brings. Up Next: Dr. Richard Schwab, MD, Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine Dr. William Lu, MD, sleep medician physician and Medical Director at Dreem Health America's Sleepless Nights: Stress, Screens, and the Search for Rest in 2025 [Survey Report]. US News and World Reports Alcohol and Sleep-Related Problems. Current Opinions in Psychology. 2020 REM Sleep: What Is It and Why It's Important. Sleep Foundation Are your medications keeping you up at night? Harvard Health What doctors wish patients knew about sleep apnea. American Medical Association. Sleep apnea. Mayo Clinic
NBC News
02-04-2025
- Health
- NBC News
Not even wealth is saving Americans from dying at rates seen among some of the poorest Europeans
Fifty years ago, life expectancy in the U.S. and wealthy European countries was relatively similar. That began to change around 1980. As European life expectancy steadily increased, the U.S. struggled to keep pace — and its life expectancy even began declining in 2014. Today, the wealthiest middle-aged and older adults in the U.S. have roughly the same likelihood of dying over a 12-year period as the poorest adults in northern and western Europe, according to a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. Some medical and health policy experts say the trend is a sign of deep-seated issues not just within the U.S. health care system, but with the typical American lifestyle of overconsuming junk food, not getting enough exercise and facing loneliness or financial stress. 'It's really concerning because, to me, what it's saying is that the set of stressors that are harming the health of Americans is very widespread, to the point where even being wealthy or rich, you're not going to be able to escape them,' said Dr. Atheendar Venkataramani, an associate professor of health policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, who reviewed the study but wasn't involved in it. The study looked at the relationship between wealth and mortality among nearly 74,000 adults from 2010 to 2022. More than 19,000 of the adults were in the U.S., and roughly 54,000 were spread across 16 countries in Europe. All were ages 50 to 85. The researchers divided the participants into four groups based on their overall assets (not including their homes). In both Europe and the U.S., the group with the most assets — the wealthiest — had a 40% lower mortality rate than the poorest group. The poorest people in the U.S. had the highest mortality rate of any group, which is consistent with previous research showing that health outcomes are worse in America. 'We were expecting to find greater inequity in the U.S. But what was surprising was how the richest in the U.S. compared to the richest in Europe,' said Irene Papanicolas, the study's lead author, who directs the Center for Health System Sustainability at Brown University's School of Public Health. The wealthiest group in northern and western Europe had mortality rates about 35% lower than the wealthiest group in the U.S., she said. Venkataramani said the findings can't be generalized to the entire U.S. population, but he added that he 'would not be surprised if these patterns held up in other age groups.' Poor health outcomes in the U.S. are often attributed, in part, to a lack of access to affordable health care, which can result in high out-of-pocket costs for medication or procedures — or in some cases, not seeing a doctor at all. However, several experts said social and economic factors — such as loneliness or stress — are more likely to affect mortality rates in wealthier adults. 'It's hard to pin what's happening on health care access,' Venkataramani said. 'Certainly health care must have something to do with it, but it cannot be even a dominant part of the story if we're seeing wealthier Americans having similar or worse outcomes than poor individuals in other wealthy countries.' In addition to universal health care, many European countries offer free or heavily subsidized higher education and more comprehensive unemployment benefits compared with the U.S. 'A lot of these countries have social welfare programs that don't prevent people from losing their jobs or experiencing poverty, but when they go through those tough times, it doesn't threaten their health,' said Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. People in the U.S. also consume more ultra-processed foods and have higher rates of obesity compared with Europeans, which can increase their risk of diabetes or heart disease — an issue Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to address in office. Kennedy has frequently pointed to the fact that Americans have worse health outcomes compared with peer countries. 'Our lifespan has dropped. So Americans now live six years shorter than Europeans. We are the sickest nation in the world and we have the highest rate of chronic disease,' he said last week in a video post on X announcing layoffs of around 20,000 HHS employees. But Woolf said the Trump administration's recent gutting of federal health agencies and termination of research grants puts the U.S. on the wrong trajectory when it comes to lowering risk factors for mortality. 'The thing that's alarming us so much in the health and medicine world is that the policies that are now being pursued in a pretty muscular way are the opposite of what you would want to do to make America healthy again,' he said, referring to Kennedy's agenda. 'In all likelihood, my prediction will be that the gap in health between Americans and people in other countries is now going to widen even more dramatically,' Woolf said. According to HHS, the consolidation and cuts are meant to make the branch more efficient and work toward ending chronic disease. White House spokesman Kush Desai added that 'the United States is by far the largest funder of scientific research and is home to the world's largest ecosystem for innovation and research.' 'The Trump administration spending its first two months to review the previous administration's projects, identify waste, and realign our research spending to suit the priorities of the American people is not going to upend America's innovative dominance,' Desai said.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Scientists Demonstrate Pre-clinical Proof of Concept for Next-Gen DNA Delivery Technology
Findings show potential for new lipid-based delivery formulations as a platform technology for immunization Philadelphia, PA, March 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scientists in The Wistar Institute lab of David B. Weiner, Ph.D., in collaboration with scientists in the laboratory of Norbert Pardi, Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and at the Pennsylvania-headquartered biotechnology company INOVIO, described a next-generation vaccination technology that combines plasmid DNA with a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery system. Their findings are published in Cell Reports Medicine in the paper, 'Modulation of lipid nanoparticle-formulated plasmid DNA drives innate immune activation promoting adaptive immunity.'David Weiner, Wistar executive vice president and W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research, is a leading expert in the field of DNA vaccines. In the study led by Weiner lab doctoral student Nicholas Tursi, researchers aimed to study how to improve lipid-based formulations to better incorporate and deliver DNA payloads for immunization. Lipid-based approaches, including LNPs, have successfully formulated and delivered various forms of RNA as well as formulating proteins as drugs in several marketed products. However, developing such formulations using DNA has previously not shown the same stability or efficacy. Tursi et al. studied how to modify lipid-based formulations that would effectively stabilize DNA in LNPs, which would simplify their delivery and improve vaccine-induced immunity. DNA has unique properties relative to RNA, including its large size and double stranded nature, which has previously been a hurdle for creating stable and consistent lipid-based DNA vaccines have been traditionally delivered using devices, which enable highly efficient uptake of DNA into cells at the injection site and potent T cell immunity against important disease targets. Utilizing an LNP formulation for DNA vaccines could potentially enable administration by needle and syringe and potentially enhance humoral immunity, which could provide an additional tool within the DNA vaccine a model DNA-LNP expressing influenza hemagglutinin (HA), the team examined how to modulate the formulation of DNA within LNPs to improve particle assembly and stability for direct injection. HA DNA-LNPs formulated at higher N/P ratios—the relationship between the lipid nanoparticle and the larger DNA backbone—led to an improved particle profile, smaller particle size, with an improved generation of immune responses. The study highlights some of the mechanisms of immunity that are conferred by DNA-LNPs. The team showed that these DNA-LNPs demonstrate a unique way of priming the immune system compared to mRNA and protein-in-adjuvant formulations. The DNA-LNP induced a unique activation pattern of innate immune populations—cells that respond early in the development of a protective immune response. The team next examined whether HA DNA-LNPs could induce strong and consistent adaptive immunity—the arm of the immune system responsible for long lived T cell and antibody responses. Relative to benchmark mRNA and protein-in-adjuvant vaccines, HA DNA-LNPs induced robust antibody and T cell responses after a single dose. Importantly, these responses were durable, with memory responses in small animals persisting beyond a year after immunization. The team also examined the immunogenicity of HA DNA-LNPs in a rabbit model, where they observed strong T cell and antibody responses that persisted into the memory phase. Finally, the team examined whether DNA-LNP vaccines could be protective in a live SARS-CoV-2 challenge model. The team utilized a DNA-LNP vaccine expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and demonstrated that a single immunization with the spike DNA-LNP successfully prevented morbidity and mortality from challenge. This study supports the continued development DNA-LNP vaccines as a unique vaccination modality. The ability for this approach to trigger strong, long-lasting immune responses highlights its potential to complement existing approaches or be potentially developed as next-generation immunization Nicholas J. Tursi1,2, Sachchidanand Tiwari3, Nicole Bedanova1, Toshitha Kannan1, Elizabeth Parzych1, Nisreen M.A. Okba4,5, Kevin Liaw1, András Sárközy3, Cory Livingston1, Maria Ibanez Trullen4,5, Ebony N. Gary1, Máté Vadovics3, Niklas Laenger1,6, Jennifer Londregan2, Mohammad Suhail Khan1, Serena Omo-Lamai7, Hiromi Muramatsu3, Kerry Blatney1, Casey Hojecki1, Viviane Machado8, Igor Marcic8, Trevor R.F. Smith8, Laurent M. Humeau8, Ami Patel1, Andrew Kossenkov1, Jacob S. Brenner7, David Allman2, Florian Krammer4,5,9,10, Norbert Pardi3,, and David B. Weiner1, 1Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, The Wistar Institute2Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania3Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania4Department of Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai5Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness (C-VaRPP), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai6Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania7Biology Department, Saint Joseph's University8INOVIO Pharmaceuticals9Department of Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai10Ignaz Semmelweis Institute, Interuniversity Institute for Infection Research, Medical University of Vienna Work supported by: NIH grants R01AI146101, R01AI153064, and P01AI165066; NIH/NIAID Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVIC) contract 75N93019C00051; and INOVIO Pharmaceuticals SRA 21-05. Additional funding provided by the W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Distinguished Professorship in Cancer Research and The Jill and Mark Fishman Foundation. Publication information: 'Modulation of lipid nanoparticle-formulated plasmid DNA drives innate immune activation promoting adaptive immunity,' from Cell Reports Medicine ABOUT THE WISTAR INSTITUTE The Wistar Institute is the nation's first independent nonprofit institution devoted exclusively to foundational biomedical research and training. Since 1972, the Institute has held National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center status. Through a culture and commitment to biomedical collaboration and innovation, Wistar science leads to breakthrough early-stage discoveries and life science sector start-ups. Wistar scientists are dedicated to solving some of the world's most challenging problems in the field of cancer and immunology, advancing human health through early-stage discovery and training the next generation of biomedical researchers. CONTACT: Darien Sutton The Wistar Institute 215-870-2048 dsutton@
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
This Washington Black Man Would Be Dead Without AI, Here's What We Know
There was thought to be no hope for Joseph Coates nearly a year ago. However, after his girlfriend begged for help from a Philadelphia doctor, the young Black man who had so much more life to live received help from the unlikeliest of places. According to the New York Times, Coates had been suffering from POEMS syndrome, a blood disorder that hurts your nerves and other parts of your body. In the case of the 37-year-old Coates, his hands and feet became numb and he had an enlarged heart and kidneys that were failing. Thinking there was nowhere else to turn, Tara Theobald, Coates' girlfriend, reached out to Dr. David C. Fajgenbaum, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. But, Dr. Fajgenbaum didn't use his own brain to discover a way to treat Coates' rare blood disorder, he used artificial intelligence. More from the New York Times: In labs around the world, scientists are using A.I. to search among existing medicines for treatments that work for rare diseases. Drug repurposing, as it's called, is not new, but the use of machine learning is speeding up the process — and could expand the treatment possibilities for people with rare diseases and few options. Thanks to versions of the technology developed by Dr. Fajgenbaum's team at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere, drugs are being quickly repurposed for conditions including rare and aggressive cancers, fatal inflammatory disorders and complex neurological conditions. Dr. Fajgenbaum used AI to come up with a unique solution using steroids, chemotherapy, and other untested treatments to help Coates' disorder. Although there were initial worries that the treatment might worsen his life, it did the opposite and made him recover faster than anyone would've hoped. It was so successful that four months later he was approved for the stem cell treatment that would improve his condition and currently, the 37-year-old is in remission. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
