• Question: how and why do people get sleeping disorders

    Asked by anon-194057 to Yousef, Rachel, Petrina, Michael, Jason on 15 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Petrina Lau

      Petrina Lau answered on 15 Nov 2018:


      Why indeed! that’s what we’re trying to find out! A lot of sleep disorders runs very strongly in the family, so our team is approaching it from genetics point of view. Recently, we are developing a project with clinicians to find out if particular gene is responsible for certain sleep disorders that runs in several families, which members of the family shares a lot of genes in common, so we can screen out the target gene more easily. 🙂

    • Photo: Rachel Sharman

      Rachel Sharman answered on 15 Nov 2018:


      Wow, what a tricky question. There’s lots of reasons for getting a sleep disorders depending on what disorder it is!

      The most common seen disorders are insomnia and sleep apnoea.

      Insomnia is when we struggle to sleep for 3 or more nights a week for at least 6 months. Some people have struggled sleeping for as long as they remember and for these people we think it’s probably genetic. Otherwise most insomnia begins with a stressful life event or a period of high stress.

      Sleep apnoea is where we pause in breathing during the night. We have two types, central or obstructive. Central apnoea is though to be genetic, so passed through the family, as during the night the body doesn’t breathe for a few breaths. We think it’s because there is a fault in the sensors in the blood vessels that recognise the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood.
      Obstructive apnoea is a little bit of genetics and a little bit of environmental factors. When we sleep, our neck goes floppy and can cause the airway to narrow. As we breathe, this vibrates and we snore. For some people it can block for a few breaths. Bigger necks, bigger build, large jaws, large tonsils, and bigger weight are all risk factors here.

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