www.reutershealth.com, Health eLine, 7/8/03
Snoring kids may become hyperactive, study shows
Last Updated: 2003-07-08 9:08:45 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Maggie Fox
WA****NGTON (Reuters) - Kids who snore may be prone to acting up in
class, U.S. researchers re****ted on Monday, saying Hispanic children
appeared to be more likely to have the problem.
Their study found a clear link between trouble sleeping and behavioral
and learning disorders, and also found clear ethnic differences.
"We're not sure why. It was kind of a surprise to us," Jamie Goodwin, a
University of Arizona epidemiologist who led the study, said in a
telephone interview.
His team analyzed data from a survey of 1,200 parents with children ages
4 through 11 attending Tucson-area schools.
They found that 11.4 percent of Hispanic parents re****ted that their
children snored, compared with 7.4 percent of white parents. More
Hispanic parents re****ted their children were sleepy during the day, and
more re****ted their children had sleep apnea -- a disorder in which the
upper airway collapses during sleep, causing numerous, brief
interruptions in breathing.
This translated into problems at school, Goodwin's team re****ts in this
week's issue of the journal Chest, published by the American College of
Chest Physicians.
They said 6.5 percent of Hispanic parents re****ted their children,
mainly boys, had learning problems, while only 3.7 percent of white
parents did.
It could be that some parents were more anxious and ready to re****t both
sleep and learning problems, Goodwin said. But he said other studies
have tended to sup****t the findings.
"We also are doing about a three-hour neurocognitive exam in these same
kids, and hopefully in a year or so we may have results that are more
objective," Goodwin said.
Some surveys suggest that 320,000 children nationwide suffer from some
sort of breathing-related sleep disorder, Goodwin's team said.
Children may have a flabbier airway than adults, which could make it
prone to collapse when they sleep, Goodwin said.
"Something I personally would like to look at is the times that children
go to bed," he said. "If a child is exceptionally sleepy, whether that
could affect airway rigidity. These 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-year-old kids should
be getting 10 to 11 hours sleep, easy, and a lot of them don't."
Adults who snore or who have sleep apnea may feel sleepy during the day,
dozing off at inappropriate times. "With a child they are hyperactive,"
Goodwin said.
Sometimes this hyperactivity mimics attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder, or ADHD, and children could be given inappropriate stimulant
medication, he said.
A second, unrelated study suggests a chemical imbalance in the brain
might cause or result from sleep disruption.
A team at the University of Michigan studied 13 patients with multiple
system atrophy -- a rare neurological disease accompanied by severe
sleep disorders.
Writing in the journal Neurology, they said they found MSA patients were
missing brain cells that produce the key message-carrying chemicals
dopamine and acetylcholine.
It is not clear whether the missing brain cells are a cause or an
effect, but the team said the findings could shed light on the sleep
disorders suffered by millions of Americans.
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