It seems that a new discovery may help women get better sleep. Soy has been found to remedy and provide better sleep, thanks mainly to its estrogen-like compounds which should help post-menopausal women resolve their sleep woes.

The compounds are called isoflavones and have been known for testing against health problems which include the likes of menopause, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and increased body fat.

To investigate whether isoflavones might be beneficial, 38 postmenopausal women with insomnia were randomly assigned to take either 80 milligrams of the isoflavones or a placebo for four months. All of the study participants underwent polysomnography, which involves spending the night in a sleep lab.

This is deemed only temporary so for women who want to try it, don’t expect too much. If the results are to be analyzed, you will agree that this is something that is a temporary remedy, meaning you may have to look for something else to treat your sleep problems.

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Another research has found that sleep clinic patients have a higher probability of being suicidal. This was bared at the SLEEP 2010: Associated Professional Sleep Societies 24th Annual Meeting where a 2 to 4 fold rate for suicidal ideation was presented.

And while this new discovery may make people think twice about seeking treatment and help for their sleep apnea issues, it seems that it all boils down to the psychiatric state of the person seeking treatment. The results provide more evidence that psychological disorders and sleep problems are closely interconnected.

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Though we haven’t seen any concrete proof on how we can benefit from proper sleep as far as our memory is concerned, it seems that this logic is going to be backed up soon with this new discovery by Rutgers University, Newark and Collége de France, Paris research team. It seems that they have scored a major breakthrough discovering a mechanism that is responsible for associating sleep with memory formation.

Normally, we address it to the time of sleep. Other than that, no clear evidence exists. But now it looks like the said research teams outdid themselves. They have determined that short transient brain events, called “sharp wave ripples,” are responsible for consolidating memory and transferring the learned information from the hippocampus to the neocortex, where long-term memories are stored.

With this development, a lot of unanswered questions now become clearer. Rest and good sleep is one thing. But the memory formation to benefit from it seems to be more important as far as tying up the learning factor is concerned.

(Source) Science Daily

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