A 2026 polysomnography study involving 685 children found that neck-to-height ratio identified moderate/severe pediatric obstructive sleep apnea better than BMI Z-score, waist-to-height ratio, or hip-to-height ratio. The signal was useful but not diagnostic: neck-to-height ratio reached AUC 0.781 overall, which is strong enough for triage but not strong enough to replace a sleep study.1 Research …
A 2026 population-based polysomnography study involving 1,206 adults found current smokers had 1.75x higher odds of worse obstructive sleep apnea severity than non-smokers or occasional smokers after adjustment for age and body mass index. Former smokers showed almost the same overall signal — 1.76x higher odds than never smokers — but that part of the …
A 2026 randomized sham-controlled trial in 76 adults with primary insomnia found an 8-week Sancai acupuncture protocol reduced post-treatment Insomnia Severity Index scores to 7.80 vs. 16.45 with sham acupuncture, while total sleep time increased to 366.83 minutes vs. 287.97 minutes.1 Research Highlights Insomnia severity fell far more with real acupuncture: Zhao et al. randomized …
A 2026 male-mouse study found that 30 mg/kg dexamethasone for 5 days increased light-phase wakefulness (t13 = 4.122, p = 0.0012), decreased NREM sleep (t13 = 4.412, p = 0.0007), and amplified orexin-neuron activity during NREM-to-wake transitions (F1,9 = 6.941, p = 0.0272). The result points to orexin-linked hyperarousal as a testable explanation for steroid-induced …