How does the time change affect your health?

By Dr. Yvette Lu


 

“Falling back” means an extra hour of sleep and being well-rested, right?

That’s what I thought too, but when I looked it up, I found that studies actually show many people are unable to take advantage of the extra hour of sleep after the end of Daylight Savings Time!

It will take about a week for our bodies to readjust to standard time!

Studies show that people have disrupted sleep, decreased sleep efficiency, and less sleep overall for the first week after the time change. Short sleepers, poor sleepers, those who are sleep deprived, and early risers tend to be most affected. If you find yourself sleeping in for the extra hour Sunday and Monday morning, it may be a sign that you are sleep deprived!

Interestingly, studies on the switch to Daylight Savings Time in the Spring have shown increased numbers of car accidents, workplace injuries, suicides, and heart attacks, and decreased work productivity on the Monday after the switch. For the switch back to Standard Time in the Fall, one study showed an increase in car accidents the Sunday night (tonight!) and another showed a decrease in heart attacks on the Monday morning.


 
How to adapt to the time change:


  • Get more rest – take a short nap if needed
  • Parents with young children may want to adjust their children’s bedtimes gradually 10-15 minutes each day to make it easier on them.
  • Circadian rhythms are affected by light — be around light during the day and turn down lights in the evening
  • No lighted screens (ipads, iphones, ipods, computers) a few hours before bed. Lighted screens activate the awake centers in your brain!
  • Exercise during the day
  • Sleep and wake at the same time every day
  • Avoid caffeine after early afternoon
  • Have a bedtime routine
  • Other tips to improve sleep hygiene: http://www.anxietybc.com/sites/default/files/SleepHygiene.pdf
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Also, with the evening coming earlier, be careful on the roads! Pedestrians will be harder to see during rush hour.

With the cold coming, here are some other things to watch out for:

  • Seasonal affective disorder: moodiness or depression that is caused by change in the season and lower light levels. See your doctor if you think you may be affected. You may want to try light therapy.
  • Vitamin D levels: We don’t get enough Vitamin D in the winter in Canada, so take your D3 supplements or get more in food. Food sources of Vitamin D include milk products, fortified products, egg yolk, and oily fish.
    More info: http://www.healthlinkbc.ca/healthfiles/hfile68e.stm


 
Read more about health effects of time changes at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23477947

 

===
Dr Yvette Lu
twitter: @yvettelu

 

Ebola: infectious versus contagious. (plus some info on airborne transmission)

By Dr. Yvette Lu

 

Recently, I talked on Breakfast Television about some of the basics of the Ebola Virus and why you are highly unlikely to get Ebola here in North America (or in any developed country).


 

Here’s the video:

Video link: http://youtu.be/63eoo_Fhbsc?list=PLzxx5hDVqT3u0N5QAIEGCO9MK9y9CIeK_


 

I didn’t have time to get into the concepts of infectious versus contagious.

There has been a lot of confusion about this on the internet and in the media. To understand Ebola and its transmission, it’s important to understand the difference between the concepts of infectious and contagious.

Ebola is very infectious. It is NOT very contagious. What?! Aren’t they the same??


 
No!!

 

How infectious a virus (or bacteria or other disease causing pathogen) is describes how many particles it needs to cause disease.

Ebola is very infectious. As few as 1-10 particles of Ebola entering through a mucous membrane (like the inside of your eye or nose) can give you the disease.

Contrast this to some strains of Salmonella and E. coli, which require thousands of organisms to establish an infection in humans.

How contagious a virus is describes how easily it spreads from person to person.

Ebola is NOT very contagious. On average, one patient with Ebola will spread it to two other people. Transmission of Ebola requires direct contact with blood and body fluids. It is NOT spread by airborne transmission.

Measles is 9 times more contagious than Ebola. One person with measles on average spreads it to 18 people if the population is not immunized. Measles is much more contagious because it can aerosolize and travel through the air on dust particles for long distances (airborne transmission). The complication rate of measles is 1/1000 for encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and the chance of dying of measles is about 1/3000. You can see now why public health officials and doctors get so anxious when people don’t immunize their children. Measles can spread very rapidly in a vulnerable community and cause a lot of trouble.

Scientists have been studying Ebola since 1976, and there have been over 20 outbreaks in the past 40 years. They have done studies of household contacts of people with Ebola, as well as studies looking at transmission to health care providers. All the studies have shown that although Ebola is infectious, it is not very contagious.

Ebola, because it requires direct contact with blood and body fluids, is difficult to pass from person to person, but because it is infectious, it doesn’t take very much fluid to pass it on, which is how the nurses (who were working with the body fluids – urine, vomit, diarrhea – of a person with Ebola) caught it. Because Ebola is not easily spread by casual contact, household contacts of Thomas Duncan (the Ebola patient) including his girlfriend, son, and two people who lived with him, did not get Ebola. People do not normally touch others’ body fluids. Plus, there is some question about whether or not the nurses were adequately protected early on during the treatment of Mr Duncan (their necks were initially exposed or they may have used the isolation gear incorrectly).

But Medical practitioners have certainly played a very important role in post surgery of the patient. sildenafil tab There are various sites that offer useful information about different sildenafil canada online medications without any efforts. According to George Osborne, it is a Budget which is capable to reward work and unashamedly buy cialis pills back business. Another drug people prefer to buy order generic cialis downtownsault.org online is Meridia.

 

This is a great chart here that shows the contagious concept graphically:

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/02/352983774/no-seriously-how-contagious-is-ebola


 

Also, we should remember that although we need to be vigilant about and wary of Ebola, HIV/AIDS is still, by far, the leading cause of death in Africa. This is an excellent chart and analysis in this article that explains this (myth number 6):

Source: http://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/6880393/ebola-virus-outbreak-disease-myths-facts-debunked-america


 

Finally, for those still wondering if Ebola will mutate to become airborne, the answer is no. It’s not impossible, of course, but it is highly unlikely. In all our time studying viruses, we have never observed a virus to change its mode of transmission. It’s too fundamental to its way of life. As quoted in this New Yorker article (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/ebola-wars), it’s like asking if Zebras will fly. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. A better question to ask is if Ebola can mutate to become better at what it does, sort of like asking if Zebras can change to run faster. For Ebola, this could involve becoming more virulent (replicating faster) or finding a way to hide from our diagnostic tests.

For now, the best thing for everyone to do is to educate themselves about the science, calm the fear, and get the flu vaccine… because flu-related complications cause an average of 23,000 deaths in the US and 3500 deaths in Canada each year. Hmmm… now how many deaths has Ebola caused in North America so far?


 

One.


 

More info about Ebola can be found here:
http://www.who.int/ebola
www.cdc.gov/ebola/


 
===
Dr Yvette Lu
twitter: @yvettelu


 

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