LACK OF SLEEP LINKED TO 300 PERCENT HIGHER RISK OF CATCHING COLDS
By Mike Adams
Natural News
January 15, 2009

Original Link

Catching a cold? Maybe that's Mother Nature's way of telling you to stay home and get some sleep for a change. A new study conducted at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has found that people who get fewer than seven hours of sleep a night are 300% more likely to catch colds.

This study, however, does not establish a causal relationship between a lack of sleep and catching colds. It more likely points to an underlying health stance by participants, where unhealthy individuals suffer both from suppressed immune systems and sleep disorders at the same time. Healthy people, on the other hand, were able to resist infections while enjoying better-quality sleep.

Resisting colds is quite easy for the nutritionally informed. When your body retains sufficient levels of both vitamin D and zinc, catching common colds is virtually impossible. I haven't caught a cold in more than six years, probably, and most hard-core natural health consumers who live on superfoods and raw foods reports virtually zero colds.

Interestingly, the people who catch colds the most often are those who get flu shots, indicating that flu shots may actually weaken the immune system, making recipients more vulnerable to future infections. It is well documented, by the way, that flu shots -- even if they work -- only protect people against last year's flu strains, not this year's flu. Thus, the whole basis upon which flu shots are promoted is temporally flawed to begin with. Unless you own a time travel machine, that is.

In any case, there's no question that getting eight hours of sleep a night is good for your health (and your immune system), but if you really want to avoid catching colds, probably the most important thing you can do -- especially during the Winter -- is raise your vitamin D levels. That can easily be accomplished by either taking vitamin D supplements (or fish oils) or taking a month-long vacation to Hawaii where you hang out on the beaches and soak up some healing rays.

Just be sure to take astaxanthin and lots of superfood antioxidants for at least 30 days before going, so that you are protected against sunburn. And throw out the sunscreen, folks, unless you want skin cancer from all the chemicals found in sunscreen.

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SLEEPLESS NIGHTS EQUAL MORE COLDS IN U.S. STUDY
Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Will Dunham
Reuters
January 13, 2009
 
http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE50C0U820090113

WASHINGTON - People who sleep less than seven hours a night are three times as likely to catch a cold as their more well-rested friends and neighbours, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

The study supports the theory that sleep is important to immune function, said Sheldon Cohen and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Volunteers who spent less time in bed, or who spent their time in bed tossing and turning instead of snoozing, were much more likely to catch a cold when viruses were dripped into their noses, they found.

People who slept longer and more soundly resisted infection better, they reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Although sleep's relationship with the immune system is well-documented, this is the first evidence that even relatively minor sleep disturbances can influence the body's reaction to cold viruses," Cohen said in a statement.

"It provides yet another reason why people should make time in their schedules to get a complete night of rest."

Cohen's team tested 153 healthy volunteers, locking them in a hotel for five days after infecting them with a cold virus.

They had been interviewed daily for the previous two weeks to get details on their sleep patterns. They were tested for cold symptoms after the five-day lockup and had blood tests for antibodies to the virus.

The men and women who reported fewer than seven hours of sleep on average were 2.94 times more likely to develop sneezing, sore throat and other cold symptoms than those who reported getting eight or more hours of sleep each night.

Volunteers who spent less than 92 percent of their time in bed asleep were 5 1/2 times more likely to become ill than better sleepers, they found.

Sleep disturbance may affect immune system signalling chemicals called cytokines or histamines, the researchers said.

"Experiments that explore the relationship between sleep and immune function often involve sleep deprivation or study subjects with sleep disorders, which are often rooted in psychiatric conditions that influence other aspects of health," Cohen added. "This research points to the role played by ordinary, real-life sleep habits in healthy persons."

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