Calorie Count to Appear Soon on New York Menus

Did you hear that beginning March 31, all chain restaurants in New York City will have to prominently post calorie data on their menus?

Indeed, as noted here previously, the city's Board of Health voted unamimously last month to require this information in the hopes that it will help combat obesity, as CNN and CSPI pointed out.

About 54 percent of adults in New York City are overweight or obese.

The new regulation applies to restaurants with 15 or more outlets nationwide – or about 10% of all New York City restaurants.

This move has the backing of a number of health groups. In fact, the The Obesity Society just came on board to show support.

Not surprisingly, New York's restaurant lobby is against this requirement, and the group even filed a lawsuit suit last summer to stop it. (One of their arguments was that listing calories would make menus look too cluttered. Forgive me for smiling, but that strikes me as a somewhat ludicrous excuse.)

While it may be useful for New Yorkers - and people in other cities - to learn how many calories are in foods they're thinking of ordering, I think it would be useful to know sugar content, too.

As I've said previously, calories just don't tell the full picture.

But the big questions are these:

• Will this calorie information spur overweight or obese people to select options that are lower in calories?
• And if they're eating at a fast-food restaurant in the first place, do you really think weight loss is a big consideration for them?

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But don't look for me at fast-food restaurants to gauge the effectiveness of this new regulation. (I just don't hang out at those places.)

Source: www.commonvoice.com

Study Ffinds Long Term Heavy Use of Cell Phones Does Increase Cancer Risk

It's not uncommon that studies done on the same subject often come to vastly different conclusions; and studies on the link between increased risk of cancer and cell phone usage are no exception.

A study published last year in American Journal of Epidemiology has shown that frequent cell phone users face a 50 percent higher risk of developing certain types of tumors. Specifically the risk of developing parotid tumors is increased by 50 percent. The parotid is the largest salivary gland and is located near the jaw and ear where cell phones are typically held.

A 50 percent increased risk of cancer sounds very serious, and any increased chance of cancer should be taken seriously. However, if you stand back and look at the actual numbers the chance of getting a tumor from using a cell phone is still incredibly minute.

A study performed by Mark Kidd showed that in heavy cell phone users the risk of parotid tumors increased from 0.003 percent to 0.0045 percent.

In September of 2007 DailyTech reported that the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme published a study stating that there was no short-term link between cancer and cell phone use. The report did say that more research was needed into the association of long term cell phone use and cancer.

A study by Dr. Siegal Sadetzki showed that using a cell phone for more than 10 years does in fact raise the risk of brain cancer and notes that children are particularly at risk because of their developing skulls. Sadetzki says, “While I think this technology is here to stay, I believe precautions should be taken in order to diminish the exposure and lower the risk for health hazards.”

Sadetzki recommends using a hands-free device at all times and holding the phone away from the body along with shorter less frequent calls. She also says limit the time kids spend on the phone.

Source: www.DailyTech.com

Obesity Increases Cancer Risk, Analysis Of Hundreds Of Studies Shows

Researchers from the University of Manchester, Christie Hospital and University of Bern in Switzerland have today published findings in the Lancet medical journal which further support the link between obesity and risk of developing cancer.

Following on from findings reported by the World Cancer Research fund last year, the study reveals that risk is increased not only in common cancers such as breast, bowel and kidney, but also in less common cancers such as blood cancers (myeloma and leukaemia) and melanoma (a form of skin cancer).

Dr Andrew Renehan and colleagues from the University of Manchester and Christie Hospital, did a meta-analysis (a combined analysis of 221 previous studies), looking at over 250,000 cases of cancer, to determine the risk of cancer associated with a 5kg/m2 increase in body mass index (BMI).

The researchers found in men, a 5kg/m2 increase in BMI raised the risk of oesophageal adenocarcinoma by 52%, thyroid cancer by 33%, and colon and kidney cancers each by 24%.

In women, a BMI increase of 5kg/m2 increased the risk of endometrial (59%), gallbladder (59%), oesophageal adenocarcinoma (51%) and kidney (34%) cancers.

They also noted weaker, but significant, positive associations between increased BMI and rectal cancer and malignant melanoma in men; postmenopausal breast, pancreatic, thyroid, and colon cancers in women; and leukaemia, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in both sexes. They found associations were stronger in men than in women for colon cancer - 24% in men compared with 9% in women.

The study looked at cancer data from all over the world, and while the results for North America, Europe, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region were broadly similar, there was a stronger link between increased BMI and both premenopausal and post menopausal breast cancers in Asia-Pacific populations.

The senior author on the study, Dr Andrew Renehan, said: "This was a hugely comprehensive piece of research looking at 221 different studies in 20 types of cancer. For some cancer types, associations differ between sexes and populations of different ethnic origins and this should inform the exploration of biological mechanisms that link obesity with cancer."

He added: "Over the past five years, there was been increasing proof that obesity is linked with cancer risk, but despite this, we do not know whether weight reduction in people protects them against cancer. The findings of this study are important to address these issues and explore ways to prevent cancers in the future."

In an accompanying comment, Dr Susanna Larsson and Dr Alicja Wolk, Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, National Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, say: "The number of deaths per year attributable to obesity is about 30000 in the UK and ten times that in the USA, where obesity has been estimated to have overtaken smoking in 2005 as the main preventable cause of illness and premature death."

They conclude: "Efforts will be needed to increase education on diet and physical activity, train health professionals, restrict advertisements of high-calorie and low-nutrient foods, limit access to unhealthy foods in schools and workplaces, levy taxes on sugary drinks and other foods high in calories, fat, or sugar, lower the prices of health foods, and promote physical activity in schools and workplaces. National cancer plans should include all these factors to reduce obesity, and thus decrease cancer incidence and increase survival."

Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Many Prostate Cancers Will Not Need Treatment

One of the largest studies of its kind concludes that most older men with early prostate cancer do not shorten their survival odds if they adopt a "wait-and-see" approach to the disease.

In fact, most such patients will die of other causes or they simply won't develop any complications from the cancer, the researchers found.

"Many elderly men with lower risk cancer may do well with conservative management," concluded study author Grace Lu-Yau, a cancer epidemiologist at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and an associate professor at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and School of Public Health.

"Each patient facing a treatment decision has to ask himself what is the potential survival benefit of various treatments and the potential side effects of various treatments, then compare this potential risk of side effects with the potential risk of cancer complications if the cancer is left untreated - and ask themselves which treatment option is their personal preference," Lu-Yau said.

She presented the findings to reporters at a special teleconference Tuesday, part of the 2008 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium taking place in San Francisco.

The question of whether to treat or not treat prostate cancer has long absorbed experts.

Although one in six men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, many of the malignancies are slow-growing, and there is currently no reliable way to identify which men will benefit from treatment. Better knowledge of the natural history of the disease (i.e., what happens without any treatment) would help guide treatment decisions, Lu-Yau said.

This study is one of the first to look at the natural history of prostate cancer since PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood testing has become commonplace. PSA tests can detect a prostate cancer six to 13 years earlier than previous methods.

Lu-Yau and her colleagues looked at data on more than 9,000 men with Stage I or II prostate cancer diagnosed between 1992 and 2002 who did not undergo treatment. The mean age of participants was 77 years.

Seventy-two percent of these men died of other causes or didn't have enough cancer progression to warrant surgery or radiation, the researchers found. For the remaining 2,675 men who did receive treatment, the median time between diagnosis and start of therapy was more than 10 years.

Not surprisingly, men with less aggressive disease survived longer than those with more aggressive tumors.

"For elderly men with localized prostate cancer, the potential survival benefit for treatment is most likely modest, therefore it is very critical to weigh the risk of having side effects of various treatments with the risk of developing cancer-related complications down the road," Lu-Yau said. "The majority of patients will die of other causes or remain alive without significant major complications."

A second study presented at the conference found that giving salvage radiation therapy (SRT) to men whose PSA levels rise after having their prostate removed can reduce their risk of dying from the cancer by more than 60 percent.

SRT is typically given only after a recurrence, not after an initial diagnosis of prostate cancer, noted study lead author Dr. Bruce Trock, associate professor of urology, epidemiology, oncology and environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Existing studies have either not been large enough or long enough in duration to determine if SRT prolongs survival.

In this retrospective analysis of 635 men who had experienced a recurrence after having their prostate removed, 62 percent of those who did not receive any salvage therapy were still alive after 10 years, versus 86 percent of those who received SRT and 82 percent of those who received SRT plus hormone therapy.

Men whose PSA doubling time (the amount of time it took for PSA levels to double from when in first becomes detectable) was six months or less had the greatest benefit.

"If another study was able to replicate our data, it could lead to clinical trial that would eventually support a way to determine who should get immediate adjuvant radiation and who could wait until the time of recurrence to have SRT," Trock said. "The question is, could a benefit be achieved in some of these men if you waited to see whether they recurred or not?"

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

High Blood Pressure on Increase Among American Women

Uncontrolled hypertension rates are on the increase among American women, and the prevalence of this major risk factor for heart disease and stroke among American men is still not as low as it should be, a new survey shows.

"Blood pressure that is higher than optimal is among the leading two or three risks for cardiovascular disease, if not the leading one," said Majid Ezzati, an associate professor of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of the report in the Feb. 12 issue of Circulation.

About one in five American adults has "uncontrolled high blood pressure," defined as a systolic pressure - the higher number of the 140/90 reading - above 140, according to the state-by-state survey. Data from two major ongoing studies, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, was used in the survey.

The incidence of uncontrolled high blood pressure had been declining steadily for decades into the 1990s, the researchers found. The decline has continued for American men, with the rate dropping from 19 percent to 17 percent in the early 2000s. But the incidence among American women increased from 17 percent to more than 22 percent during that same period.

There are big state-by-state differences, with the incidence of hypertension highest in southern states and the District of Columbia and lowest in Northeastern and Midwestern states such as Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado.

"We also found that in every state in the United States, women have higher uncontrolled hypertension prevalence rates than men do," Ezzati said in a statement. "The difference between men and women is as low as 4 percent and as high as 7 percent."

"We need to look nationally, but also especially focus on those states with the highest hypertension prevalence and emphasize interventions to do better than last decade's trends," Ezzati said.

The persistent incidence of hypertension is "principally a failure of our health-care delivery system," said Dr. Dan Jones, president of the American Heart Association. "Certainly physicians have some fault, patients have some fault, and biology plays a role. But in our current health-care system, high blood pressure is treated as part of a visit with a primary-care physician that may take only five to 15 minutes. It may be one of five or six problems that the patient has and may be the least symptomatic of those problems, so it doesn't get the attention it should."

Even when the problem is detected and hypertension medication is prescribed, "patients need to take the medicine on a regular basis, and simply fail to do so," Jones said.

Measures other than drug treatment can keep blood pressure under control, Ezzati added. "Lowering salt intake, including regulation in packaged and prepared foods, and regular testing should both be effective, as would, of course, more exercise and lower weight," he said.

"We've got to make hypertension a high priority in the treatment of patients," Jones said.

Source: www.forbes.com

Scientists Reprogram Human Skin Cells Into Embryonic Stem Cells

U.S. scientists say they've reprogrammed human skin cells into ones with the same blank-slate properties as embryonic stem cells, a breakthrough that could aid in treating many diseases while sidestepping controversy.

Human embryonic stem cells have the ability to become every cell type found in the human body. Being able to create these cells en masse and without using human eggs or embryos could generate a potentially limitless source of immune-compatible cells for tissue engineering and transplantation medicine, said the scientists, from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The researchers genetically altered human skin cells using four regulator genes, according to findings published online in the Feb. 11 edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.

The result produced cells called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, that are almost identical to human embryonic stem cells in function and biological structure. The reprogrammed cells also expressed the same genes and could be coaxed into giving rise to the same cell types as human embryonic stem cells, the researchers said.

"Our reprogrammed human skin cells were virtually indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells," lead author Kathrin Plath, an assistant professor of biological chemistry and a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, said in a prepared statement. "Our findings are an important step towards manipulating differentiated human cells to generate an unlimited supply of patient specific pluripotent stem cells. We are very excited about the potential implications."

The UCLA findings confirm similar work first reported in late November by researcher Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University and James Thompson at the University of Wisconsin. Together, the studies demonstrate that human iPS cells can be easily created by different laboratories and are likely to mark a milestone in stem cell-based regenerative medicine, Plath said.

Reprogramming adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells has significant implications for disease treatment. A patient's skin cells, for example, could be reprogrammed into embryonic stem cells that could be prodded into becoming beta islet cells to treat diabetes, hematopoetic cells to create a new blood supply for a leukemia patient, or motor neuron cells to treat Parkinson's disease, the researchers said.

These new techniques to develop stem cells could potentially replace a controversial method to reprogram cells called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), sometimes referred to as therapeutic cloning. To date, therapeutic cloning has not been successful in humans.

"Reprogramming normal human cells into cells with identical properties to those in embryonic stem cells without SCNT may have important therapeutic ramifications and provide us with another valuable method to develop human stem cell lines," study first author William Lowry, an assistant professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology, said in a prepared statement. "It is important to remember that our research does not eliminate the need for embryo-based human embryonic stem cell research, but rather provides another avenue of worthwhile investigation."

However, top stem cell scientists worldwide stress further research comparing reprogrammed cells with stem cells derived from embryos - considered the gold standard - is necessary.

Source: www.forbes.com

Scientists create three-parent embryos

Sugar Substitutes May Contribute to Weight Gain

Surprising research suggests a popular artificial sweetener has the unexpected and unwelcome effect of packing on the pounds.

Purdue researchers report that saccharin altered the ability of rats to control their appetites. However, the head of an artificial sweetener trade group scoffed at the findings, saying they don't necessarily translate to humans.

"We found that the rats that were getting artificially sweetened yogurt gained more weight and ate more food," said study author Susan Swithers, an associate professor of psychological sciences at the Ingestive Behavior Research Institute at Purdue University. "The take-home message is that consumption of artificially sweetened products may interfere with an automatic process."

That process, she said, involves the body's ability to detect that it will soon be full. "We often will stop eating before we've been able to absorb all of the calories that come from a meal. One of the reasons we might stop eating is that our experience has taught in the past that, 'After I eat this food, I'll feel this full for this long,' " she explained.

It seems to be a subconscious process based on automatic estimations of how much energy certain foods will provide, she said. For example, a sweet taste might be a sign that "calories are coming, and I should prepare my body for the arrival of those calories." However, when the sweetness is not followed by a lot of calories, the body's digestive system gets confused, and the metabolism rate does not gear up as much the next time sweetness is tasted.

To test this theory, the researchers fed two different types of plain Dannon yogurt to male rats. Some received yogurt sweetened with glucose, a form of sugar, while others ate saccharin-sweetened yogurt. All also ate unsweetened yogurt.

The rats who ate artificially sweetened yogurt consumed more food overall and gained more weight. The body temperatures of those rats also didn't rise as high as the others. "That might be a kind of measure of energy expenditure, suggesting not only are the animals eating more calories, they may be expending or burning up fewer calories," Swithers said.

The findings were published in the February issue ofBehavioral Neuroscience.

Essentially, she said, it appears that the bodies of the rats are learning to not expect much in the way of calories from sweet foods. "The artificial sweetener provides the signal that not as many calories are going to come, and the animal responds by consuming more calories."

As for humans, she said, previous research has provided conflicting indications about whether obesity is a bigger problem among people who use artificial sweeteners.

According to her, launching a similar study among people would be difficult, because few have never encountered artificial sweeteners before. The next step, she said, is to do more research in rats.

Lyn Nabors, president of the Calorie Control Council trade group, lambasted the study, saying it has "no basis in science" and "no relation to the human experience whatsoever."

Artificial sweeteners can help people lose weight, she said. "The scientific community firmly believes that calories in, calories out is what makes a difference. The recommendation is that you reduce calories and exercise if you want to lose weight."

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Pre-Chewed Baby Food Said to Transmit H.I.V.

Researchers have identified another way that babies can be infected with H.I.V. — through food pre-chewed by an infected parent or caretaker.

Although thousands of babies have been infected in the United States over the last 15 years, pre-chewed food has been documented as the cause of just three cases, federal epidemiologists said here Wednesday.

But such transmission may not be so rare, Dr. Kenneth L. Dominguez’s team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

Pre-chewing food apparently occurs among many groups in this country and elsewhere. So transmission of H.I.V., the AIDS virus, to infants may be an unrecognized problem in developing countries where dental care is lacking, commercially prepared baby foods and blenders are not available and parents and caretakers may need to soften foods, Dr. Dominguez said in an interview.

His team said there were several reasons for reporting the three cases, dating from 1993, for the first time. One was to make health care providers and caregivers of infected children aware of the potential risk of pre-chewing. Another was to ask doctors and family members to report suspected cases to health officials to quantify the threat.

Human immunodeficiency virus is present in saliva, but usually in amounts too low to cause transmission. So, presumably, blood, which has larger amounts of the virus, is also needed for transmission.

Infected chewers with inflammations or open mouth sores can pass the virus to infants through cuts or other common teething conditions, Dr. Dominguez said.

Although the three cases were among African-Americans born in the United States, pre-chewing is prevalent among many ethnic and racial groups, according to a recent national survey of infant feeding by the C.D.C., Dr. Dominguez said.

Specific findings from the survey have not been released.

“It’s likely that some cultural influences are involved, and I am sure that people are doing what their grandmothers and aunties did in practices carried through generations,” Dr. Dominguez said.

Epidemiologists from the centers, working with researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and the University of Miami, intensively investigated all three cases, ruling out other causes of transmission like breast feeding, sexual abuse and needle sticks.

The first two cases involved boys from Miami infected in the mid-’90s. One boy’s infection was detected when he was 39 months old, shortly before his death, after previously testing negative for the virus twice. The mother, who was infected, reported pre-chewing food for the boy.

The second boy’s mother was uninfected but lived with an infected aunt who pre-chewed his food. He survives. In the third case, a girl from Memphis was found to be infected in 2004 at 9 months old after testing negative for the virus three times. Her mother was infected and pre-chewed food for her daughter.

Genetic studies showed that the viruses isolated from the first and third cases matched those of the mother. The second case’s caregiver died before blood samples could be obtained. H.I.V. isolated from the caregiver’s infected male sexual partner did not match that from the boy.

Researchers will try to determine whether other dangerous microbes like hepatitis B virus and Helicobacter pylori might be transmitted through pre-chewed food.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Study: Cell Phone Use Affects Sperm Count, Quality

A recent study concluded that extended cell phone use may affect the number and quality of the male sperm count. This would significantly diminish a man's fertility, making it much harder to produce a baby.

Experts from a Cleveland Clinic explained that, according to their findings, the count and quality of produced male sperm is inversely proportional to the frequency of their use of the cell phone.

Measurements done from an experiment revealed that men who use their cell phones for four or more hours a day produced the lowest sperm count, as well as the least visible sperm, reported dbTechno.

Dr. Ashok Agarwal, the study's lead researcher, said that they noticed a "significant decrease in the most important measures of sperm health with cell phone use and that should definitely be reflected in a decrease in fertility."

Fox News said that the scientists are relating the decreased count and quality of sperm to the electromagnetic energy produced by the cell phones. They theorized that the energy was harming body tissue, particularly by harming the male's DNA.

The scientists, however, noted that their study did not directly point to the cell phones as the cause of sperm damage.

Source: www.allheadlinenews.com

Scientists Create Three-parent Embryos

British scientists have created human embryos with three parents in a development they hope could lead to effective treatments for a range of serious hereditary diseases within five years.

Researchers from Newcastle University, in northern England, presented their findings at a medical conference at the weekend, a university spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The IVF, or test-tube, embryos were created using DNA from one man and two women.

The idea is to prevent women with faults in their mitochondrial DNA passing diseases on to their children. Around one in 5,000 children suffer from mitochondrial diseases, which can include fatal liver, heart and brain disorders, deafness, muscular problems and forms of epilepsy.

If all goes well, researchers believe they may be able to start offering the technique as a treatment in three to five years.

Mitochondria are tiny power packs inside cells that provide their energy. Faulty genetics can mean mitochondria do not completely burn food and oxygen, leading to the build-up of poisons responsible for more than 40 different diseases.

The Newcastle team believe these diseases could be avoided if embryos at risk were given an effective mitochondrial transplant. The process involves in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the subsequent removal of the egg's nucleus. The nucleus is then placed into a donor egg whose DNA has been removed.

The resulting fetus inherits nuclear DNA, or genes, from both parents but mitochondrial DNA from a third party.

"The idea is simply to swap the bad diseased mitochondria - give a transplant, if you like - for good healthy ones from a donor," Patrick Chinnery, a member of the Newcastle team, said in a telephone interview.

"We're trying to prevent kids being born with fatal diseases." Mitochondrial DNA is passed down only through the female line.

The technique has so far been tried only in the laboratory, using abnormal embryos left over from IVF therapy, and the handful of three-parent embryos created were destroyed after six days.

Stiff opposition to the technique is likely from critics of embryo research who fear the creation of designer babies.

The research was presented to the Medical Research Council Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases conference in London on February 1-2.

Source: www.reuters.com

Smokers Sleep Less Soundly

Smokers are four times more likely to feel tired when they wake up and they spend less time in deep sleep than nonsmokers do, a new study finds.

This may be because smokers experience nicotine withdrawal each night, which may contribute to sleep disturbances, suggest the study authors, whose report appears in the February issue ofChest.

"It is possible that smoking has time-dependent effects across the sleep period. Smokers commonly experience difficulty falling asleep due to the stimulating effects of nicotine. As night evolves, withdrawal from nicotine may further contribute to sleep disturbance," study author Dr. Naresh M. Punjabi, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a prepared statement.

Punjabi and colleagues studied the sleep patterns of 40 smokers and 40 nonsmokers. They found that 22.5 percent of smokers reported a lack of restful sleep, compared with only 5 percent of nonsmokers. Smokers also experienced a lower percentage of deep sleep and a higher percentage of light sleep.

The largest differences in sleep between the two groups occurred at the onset of sleep, which suggests the effects of nicotine are strongest in the early stages of sleep and decrease as the sleep cycle progresses, the researchers said.

These findings may help develop more effective ways to help people stop smoking.

"Many smokers have difficulty with smoking cessation partly because of the sleep disturbances as a result of nicotine withdrawal," Punjabi said. "By understanding the temporal effects of nicotine on sleep, we may be able to better tailor nicotine replacement to minimize the withdrawal effects that smokers experience, particularly during sleep."

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

A Daytime Nap Can Boost Memory

A 45-minute midday nap can help boost your memory and remember facts, but only if you learned them well in the first place, a new study suggests.

This type of memory is called "declarative memory" and applies to standard textbook learning and knowledge, in contrast to "procedural memory," which applies to skills. Sleep appears to help "set" these declarative memories and make them easier to recall, the researchers said.

"Sleep appears to have an impact on what is learned well, but not so much when one is not motivated to learn," said lead researcher Matthew A. Tucker, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School's Center for Sleep and Cognition.

For the study, 33 people were trained with certain declarative memory tasks. After the training, 16 took a non-REM nap, while 17 stayed awake and watched a movie. Later the same day, all the participants were tested. The tests included memorizing words, memorizing a maze and memorizing a complex line drawing.

Tucker's team found that over three very different declarative memory tasks, taking a nap improved performance compared with staying awake. However, napping only worked for people who had really learned the task well in the first place.

"The nap group performed better overall than the awake group, but the difference wasn't significant," Tucker said. "However, when we looked at individual performance during training, we found those who did better during training benefited from napping," he said.

In addition, people appeared to perform well on one task only, but not all three, Tucker said. "There is likely a basic level of learning that has to be attained before sleep can have an impact on performance," he said.

The findings were published in the Feb. 1 issue of the journalSleep.

Tucker thinks that taking a nap may actually improve one's memory of facts if one is motivated to learn. "There is a lot of data starting to come in that there are benefits from naps on memory," he said.

Sara Mednick, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego's Laboratory of Sleep and Behavioral Neuroscience, said the new study is further proof of the role of sleep on memory and learning.

"This paper is further evidence of how sleep, specifically naps, can be a tool for memory consolidation," she said. "Interestingly, the data shows that not all subjects utilize sleep for consolidation to a similar extent."

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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