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Why Sleep Deprivation Kills
- clon 6y agoI cannot stand those long form articles. The headline picked my interest, the lead text is intriguing but the first paragraph that starts to describe a bright, warm morning or the attire or the facial features of a "lead character" immediately takes the wind out of my sails. How can anyone place so little value on their time as to be able afford to consume material that is so sparse in information?
- kapakos 6y agoIf that bothered you, you haven’t looked up food recipes.
- submeta 6y agoExactly my perception. Was looking desperately for an abstract, a TL;DR version, the key takeaways.
- CamperBob2 6y agoThis article was particularly frustrating, because it inspires but never answers an incredibly obvious question: does antioxidant treatment help prevent the effects of sleep deprivation in rats, or only in fruit flies? Surely that would have been the next thing on the researchers' list of things to try. They may have addressed this, and I just missed it. But in general I agree that this isn't the best format for describing this type of research to nonspecialist readers. I don't mind a slight dose of human-interest fluff, but the facts should come first. (I take it from the patented HN instant downvote that the article did, in fact, answer my question, and I just missed it.)
- clon 6y agoLooking at the 'Graphical Abstract' in the excellent link [1] that seesawtron posted, I don't think you did miss anything. [1] https://bit.ly/3cy0C9u https://bit.ly/3cy0C9u
- seesawtron 6y agoCan someone explain how the downvote system works? I guess every user is not allowed to downvote but some users can? Thanks for your insights in advance.
- Xylakant 6y agoIt’s been a while since I was a new member here, but AFAIR, you need to accumulate a bit of karma so you can downvote. This prevents fresh accounts from downvoting.
- xboxnolifes 6y agoI think it's 500 karma, but I'm not sure because I've been here 2 years and still don't have access.
- rrmm 6y agoI'm at around 1000 and have it. I suspect it might be a little above 500? EDIT: dang answers directly (500 or 501): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8381148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8381148 (2014) I try to save downvotes for posts that are actively abusive or hurt the discussion (by being abusive). Not just for stuff I don't like or I find 'low effort' (although I understand why others might have different standards). I also try to be generous with upvotes for everyone who participates with me in good faith.
- CamperBob2 6y agoI have a feeling my comment is being downvoted by people who didn't read the article. In retrospect, I can see where someone might think I'm advocating a quack antioxidant treatment for sleep disorders, or "just asking questions here," or something else besides asking a specific, valid question about the studies. Oh, well.
- rrmm 6y agoYeah people seem extra jumpy these days especially concerning medical articles. I generally just expect it ahead of time and shrug when it happens.
- barrkel 6y agoI too was hanging on throughout the end for that experiment result, but it never came.
- easytiger 6y agoIndeed it's a really common trope. More hook to the core subject is needed before waffle can be tolerated. I imagine some popular course on writing had much to answer for. I suspect this works better in print when you sit down with a cup of tea and a copy of the New Yorker
- seesawtron 6y agoIndeed. I do not want to know about the "cold morning when the researcher walked into the lab..." Like Linus Torvalds say "Just show me the damn code!", these magazine articles love to beat around the bush than lay out the key story points right away. So I skipped directly to the figures and section of the story that talks about changes in ROS levels in gut.
- nothis 6y agoYou’re complaining about two sentences in a 3000 word article. Read on. It’s raw information from there. You are also allowed to skip the pictures.
- wruza 6y agoThe problem is, this way we would spend 72 hours a day on all these 3k word articles for getting one page worth of chitchat material. I bet that tl;dr extension that would allow to jump directly to highlights (or mark them) would be pretty popular. If anyone knows one, please share.
- CamperBob2 6y agoSomething like that could work like existing models that generate abstracts for research papers. I don't know if these techniques have gone mainstream yet, but my understanding is that they are under active development. If you can generate one or two paragraphs that summarize the findings of a paper, it's not much of a stretch to imagine an application that generates pop-sci articles of the desired length.
- watwut 6y agoThere is exactly one paragraph of it. It takes approximately 10 seconds and is easy to skip. Seriously.
- rstuart4133 6y agoThe paper the article is about [0] has a 3 sentence 32 word introduction. Those 32 words tell describe the mechanism they found, and give you a feeling for how likely it is to apply to humans. 3000 words is a big jump. The first paragraph is 94 words long. The article has more than that of course - it's a leisurely introduction to the people behind the discovery and the effort they put it. Nothing wrong with that, it's a worthy story in its own right. But when you click on the headline "Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient?" so discover the 32 words answer to the question in the headline is buried in a 3000 word human interest story, you may feel a little cheated. [0] https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30555-9.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30555-9.pdf
- wnoise 6y agoThere's one paragraph of that. Then a paragraph talking about the lab being in an apartment building, so that there are bedrooms nearby. Then a paragraph grad students describing their work as "thrilling" to the point of not wanting to graduate. (As an ex-grad student, I have to say "Really?")
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoFanfiction Journalism. If you want to tell a story please just write a book, I don't need your clickbait wrapped up in a quaint little story.
- EmilioMartinez 6y agoWhat's most painful about it is you can feel the writer's desire for a different job.
- sfifs 6y agoLook it's a magazine with long form read intended for people who like such things. You can always skip it and read the abstract of the paper it references :-)
- growlist 6y agoSo true. Details that are so utterly irrelevant and gratuitous that it verges on being an (unintentional) parody of the style: 'On a cold morning this winter, Rogulja leaned over a tablet in her office, her close-cropped dark hair framing a face of elfin intensity'
- pdog 6y agoI thought maybe you were being overly critical and the writing wouldn't be so bad... then I read halfway through this sentence: On a cold morning this winter, Rogulja leaned over a tablet in her office, her close-cropped dark hair framing a face of elfin intensity...
- FriendlyNormie 6y agoIs this your first time witnessing how women write? Were you born yesterday?
- sooheon 6y agoPoe's law strikes again.
- karatestomp 6y ago> framing a face of elfin intensity Oof. Now there's a phrase that belongs in a Lyttle Lytton entry.
- atomize 6y agoSo glad I caught this comment before I gave that article a chance to make me wretch.
- FriendlyNormie 6y agoIt’s how all women write. You’re just saying you hate women.
- antman 6y agoYes, that would be me. I like long form articles, I don’t consider them as part of any pressure or deliverable. I have managed my life by living in a humane environment so as to enjoy rather than be frustrated in small everyday time consuming activities. Of course I would understand if someone would prefer if I simply said “Yes” and I would consider a time waste to fuss about it.
- kiba 6y agoI found tremendous amount of valuable information when I do intensive reading on a long form article, such as historical context, locations of cities and places, and other info that's only loosely related to the topic at home. Like I now know that spaced repetition systems that people uses for studying was a product of Soviet era research by a Polish academic. Though whether it's a warm morning or not is kinda useless to me.
- chmaynard 6y agoNext month's issue will feature a long-form article on why suffocation by a police officer kills.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoWhat? You don't want to see the author literarily jerk themselves off? This is how writers write when they're writing to show of their craft. Of course us uncultured laymen are not going to appreciate it the same way that someone who just wants to build a shelf to put their crap on is not going to appreciate a 45min YouTube video where somebody looking to show off fine woodworking spends an entire weekend building a shelf and someone who wants to just make an omelette is not going to enjoy a video where a master chef freezes frame every 10sec to narrate about the technique needed to wiggle it just right in order to make butter to brown the image of the Mona Lisa into the thing. Whether "performing one's craft in a manner that showcases the capabilities of one's craft" is appropriate for the context is a matter of opinion.
- asdff 6y agoThis isn't showing off their craft, this is like John Hancock's flourish. You can write well and short.
- EmilioMartinez 6y agoAt least there is value in the other examples, and you can quickly tell how the video's going to play out. I sometimes need to pre-skim the whole text just to feel the signal to noise ratio. When will journos dawn on that we don't care about their morning bagels?
- thrownaway954 6y agomost content writers and journalist i know get paid for the amount of content they write. that fluff paragraph that you hate so much added almost 100 word and over 500 characters to article. if you are required to write an article with a minimum length of 2000 words, you just knocked off 5% of your requirement.
- chromatin 6y agoLuckily there was a link to the Cell paper early on. I skipped directly there [0] and there was a wonderful short abstract with key points as well as a graphical abstract that succinctly summarized the findings. [0] https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30555-9.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420305559%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30555-9.pdf?_ret...
- czzr 6y agoThat graphical abstract is brilliant. All I needed to know in seconds.
- papeda 6y agoThis complaint pops up over and over again on HN. A lot of people like writing that "paints a picture", or like fancy GUIs, or want a website with a bunch of bells and whistles, or small talk without much real information. HN, in general, skews against all of these things (and so do I) but it's not a representative sample of what people in general want.
- sabrehagen 6y agoI came here to express the same sentiment, expecting to be an outlier. The overwhelming response is my perspective. I'm glad it's not just me who wonders "who writes this sh*t". "in their own tubes live other sleepless flies, animated with the calm persistence of those consigned to eternal day." - This hurts my head. This author does not understand communication.
- dvtkrlbs 6y agoI thought it was only me but i bored after the first paragraph and tried skimming through the article but it was too boring.
- todd8 6y agoI’ve let my New Yorker subscription lapse. The writing is great and sometimes, perhaps on a long leisurely train ride across Canada, it might be nice to read these “long form” articles. I was finally just subscribing for the cartoons.
- woodandsteel 6y agoThe reason that the article is written this way is that most human beings enjoy stories about people and events. I assume the reason you don't understand that is you are in this way different from most human beings but are not clearly aware of it.
- qqn 6y agoLol exactly. So I come to the comments in hopes of the tl;dr, which is usually just a sentence.
- seesawtron 6y agoTLDR: Sleep deprivation in flies and mice leads to increased ROS (Reactive oxygen species) molecules in the gut. This is show to be highly correalted to be the cause of lethality. To show the causality, the over-expression of anti-oxiodants restores normal lifespan in the animals. Abstract video summary by the senior author here: https://bit.ly/3cy0C9u https://bit.ly/3cy0C9u
- sradman 6y agoThe Cell paper [1] begins with a three bullet Highlights section: - Sleep deprivation leads to ROS accumulation in the fly and mouse gut - Gut-accumulated ROS trigger oxidative stress in this organ - Preventing ROS accumulation in the gut allows survival without sleep in flies [1] https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30555-9.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420305559%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30555-9.pdf?_ret...
- nefitty 6y agoAfter finishing this article, I immediately started googling for any anecdotal signs of antioxidant usage effects on sleep. Coincidentally, I found out that melatonin has strong antioxidant properties itself. Could supplementing with melatonin reduce the need for sleep? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Antioxidant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Antioxidant https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin#tempus-fugit https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin#tempus-fugit
- seesawtron 6y agoCool. Falvonoids are also known to be anti-oxidants. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavonoid#Antioxidant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavonoid#Antioxidant
- balnaphone 6y agoPlease research in-depth before experimenting too much. Some common antioxidants are surprisingly linked to modestly increased all-cause mortality; the most famous is the set of vitamin E studies, but there are others. [1] https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/antioxidants-in-depth https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/antioxidants-in-depth [2] https://www.webmd.com/drug-medication/news/20070227/antioxidant-supplements-up-death-risk https://www.webmd.com/drug-medication/news/20070227/antioxid...
- exanimo_sai 6y agoMy thoughts immediately too... there seems to be a link between magnesium tablets and this process as well
- scotty79 6y agoTLDR Feeding fruit flies antioxidants (suitable for flies) lessen the damage from sleep deprivation to the point it's no longer lethal or life shortening. Damage from sleep deprivation seems to be very strongly correlated with oxidants build up in the gut of fruit flies. Similar oxidants show up in guts of sleep deprived rats as in fruit flies, so it's quite interesting. By reading the actual paper I learned that apparently melatonin and lipoic acid fared best at extending survival without giving any additional sleep. Another interesting observation from the paper is that anti-oxidants didn't affect lifespan of non-sleepdeprived fruit flies.
- pkghost 6y ago> Yet scientists have found it oddly hard to say exactly why sleep loss is lethal. Barf. This kind of straw-manning is all too common in science journalism. IANAS but I know that normal metabolism generates free radicals (electron-greedy molecules), which then steal electrons from anything they touch, causing damage. If that damage isn't repaired regularly, then our basic metabolic pathways breakdown, and we die. I'm sure there are mysteries to unpack beneath this, but why treat the reader to a moronic underrepresentation of the state of the art?
- diroussel 6y agoIf I find I can't open a door, it cllouls be because there is a lock. If I remove the lock does that mean the door can be opened? No, there might be another lock, or rusty hinges, or nails to the frame. Just because we might be able to remediate this one mechanism in the gut doesn't mean we can solve sleep. What about memory formation? Or immune system effects of sleep?
- pkghost 6y agoI think you misunderstood? I meant: we understand one way in which sleep loss can kill sufficiently well that we don't need to describe its lethality as "oddly hard to explain". That doesn't mean there isn't more to learn about sleep, or other things about sleep that are, indeed, oddly hard to explain.
- ck425 6y agoSo the interesting question here would be (and I'm not a biologist so may have misunderstood parts of the study), does increasing the amount of anti-oxidants you consume reduce the need for sleep and/or improve wakefulness?
- GuB-42 6y agoIt looks like anti-oxidants can prevent you from dying in case you don't sleep at all. It doesn't tell much about the long term effects of low levels of sleep deprivation.
- seesawtron 6y agoOne should always be cautious to not assume that studies conducted in lab animals translate to humans by default. The media is quick to do that but we can be better than that.
- seesawtron 6y agoIn this study they showed that exposure to anti-oxidants restores sleep and normal lifespan. But be cautious that is only in comparison to sleep-deprived animals. There is no claim that lifespan went beyond "normal".
- irrational 6y agoIt’s 4am and I read this headline. Thanks for the motivation to head to bed.
- RickJWagner 6y agoFirst: I find this kind of research valuable, I think mankind will benefit from it. But now, the discussion question: What would people say if this experimentation were being done on puppies, or rabbits, or baby seals? Why are fruit flies different?
- Majromax 6y ago> What would people say if this experimentation were being done on puppies, or rabbits, or baby seals? Why are fruit flies different? Because we as a society explicitly assign different levels of moral worth to different animals. Fruit flies have greater worth than bacteria or yeast but lesser worth than mammals, which in turn have lesser worth than primates or humans (as subcategories of mammals). That's an inherent problem to in vivo studies: we're fine with experiments on bacteria or yeast but we'd all be horrified at unconsenting experiment on humans. There's a line, and we must draw it somewhere.
- landa 6y agoYou're being down-voted, but I think it's a valid point. Just because fruit flies are simpler organisms, doesn't mean we should be sleep depriving them until they die. Sounds very cruel. I look forward to the day when scientific progress in biological sciences doesn't necessitate having to harm any living creatures at all.
- sy7ar 6y agoAs someone who has chronic maintenance insomnia (so bad that I've been off work for more than 6 months), is there anything I can do?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- emiliobumachar 6y agoTake forum advice with a grain of salt, but you asked for it, so here it goes. Exercise daily, starting today. Ditch or at least dim all screens a few hours before going to bed. Hard ban on screens when unwillingly awake in the middle of the night. Paper books are okay. Look into techniques to fall asleep, this article helped me: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-fast/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-fast/. The article and the research it cites are male-oriented, women may try it more speculatively. Intuitively it seems to me that gender differences should not be relevant. Septum surgery helped my sleep enormously by making breathing easier, see if it's for you. Hard ban on stimulants, including sugar and coffee, a few hours before going to bed. Hard ban on stimulants when unwillingly awake in the middle of the night. For a severe case such as yours, consider a hard ban after midday, or even a complete permanent ban.
- sy7ar 6y agoThanks for the reply. Sorry I didn't give more details. Unfortunately, I've been following most of the "best practices" for sleep for a while, as it's been almost a year since my sleep turned to a mess. Currently, I try to take a walk at least 30 minute everyday in the morning and then I do the 7-minute-workout in the afternoon, even when I have no energy. My sleep's improved for the past couple of months since I started this workout routine. I can't tell if it's because of that or my sleep just improves on its own but I'll keep doing it since exercising is better than doing nothing. I also started 18:6 intermittent fasting. That might also have helped. Still, my improved sleep means about 5 to 5.5 hours (sometimes less) a night with at least 2 awakenings in between. My normal sleep was about 8 hours with 1 awakening, and I'd still nap in the afternoon if given the opportunity. Now, I can't nap and there's no rebound sleep (i.e. I don't sleep more the next day because I sleep very little the day before). It's a pretty messed up situation and doctors haven't found anything abnormal from medical tests, including MRI and EEG. Sleep study indicated 50% sleep efficiency, reduced REM and deep sleep, but no sleep apnea or any common cause. I tried the 2-min fall asleep method when my condition first started but it didn't really help. And yes, I only drink green tea and have some chocolates before lunch time in terms of stimulants. I've also read Why We Sleep before my sleep got this bad. In fact, knowing too much about how sleep work and the negative impact on health with lack of sleep makes it much worse for me. So now I tend to avoid reading articles like this and learning more details. I guess what I'm asking is if there's anything more I can do, like something to supplement or eat/do to make up for the stuff lost due to insufficient sleep. It's a long shot asking in a tech forum, but I'm willing to give anything a chance to help improve my sleep. Let's hope there's more research into sleep as insomnia is one of the worst form of suffering.
- biolurker1 6y agoGiven that during the pandemic people are over stressed and suffering from insomnia, this articles should not have been submitted imo
- softwaredoug 6y agoThis is the kind of article that causes harm to insomniacs. We stay up late, worried about our sleep deprivation, causing sleep deprivation. Really when I talk to a sleep doctor, they say don't stress about a single night or two of bad sleep. It happens. Even a weeklong stretch. If you can't sleep, don't try. And its ok if you get 5 or 6 hours. They'll often care about quality over quantity.
- seesawtron 6y agoI am sorry for your struggle with insomnia. I just don't see why this research does harm to you? The whole goal of research in this field is to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms that are responsible for sleep disorders or related to them. In the lonf run, a better understanding of these mechanisms will help the research community to develop methods to treat these disorders in humans. It is unfortunate that this research has to be done with animals and the scientific community is thankful to the society for understanding the crucial need for it and their support with research grants from their taxes.
- trianglem 6y agoI really wish we had a human analogue to test these things on. If we push the boundaries of ethics, moral and technology can we create a decephalized “human” currently?
- seesawtron 6y agoThere are artificial grown tissues from human Stem cells called "organoids" [0] that are used in labs to conduct experiments. But of course these experiments are very limited as it remains to be seen how far can organoids resemble the human brain (or other organs). Behaviour experiments are of course a far far goal on this. [0] https://hsci.harvard.edu/organoids https://hsci.harvard.edu/organoids
- jcun4128 6y agoUntil I'm free/can work on my own time I'm usually often sleep deprived especially on Mondays and it goes throughout the week until I get back to normal by Friday... crappy cycle. Still I find when I get too much sleep(sleep as long as I want) I feel bored with my life. So slightly sleep deprived seems to keep me in the grind.