"A new study sheds light on the biological underpinnings of excessive daytime sleepiness, a persistent and inappropriate urge to fall asleep during the day - during work, at meals, even mid-conversation - that interferes with daily functioning. The findings, published in The Lancet eMedicine, open the door to exploring how nutrition, lifestyle, and environmental exposures interact with genetic and biological processes to affect alertness."
"The findings add weight to the idea that excessive daytime sleepiness isn't just the result of too little sleep. "Recent studies identified genetic variants associated with excessive daytime sleepiness, but genetics explains only a small part of the story," said co-corresponding author Tamar Sofer, director of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at the Cardiovascular Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and an associate professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School."
Metabolite by-products of steroid hormones associate with excessive daytime sleepiness, linking biochemical processes to persistent daytime drowsiness. Blood levels of 877 metabolites were measured in over 6,000 participants from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos. Metabolite profiling identified signatures connected to daytime sleepiness independent of sleep duration, suggesting genetics account for only a small proportion of risk. Biomarkers derived from metabolomic analysis may illuminate mechanisms by which nutrition, lifestyle, and environmental exposures interact with genetic and biological processes to influence alertness and could inform new approaches to diagnosis and intervention.
Read at Harvard Gazette
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