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A study shows that frequent napping is associated with an elevated prevalence of type 2 diabetes and impaired fasting glucose in an older Chinese population.

Significant differences have been found in the sleep habits and attitudes of Asians, African-Americans, Hispanics and whites.

Not getting enough sleep does more damage than just leaving you with puffy eyes. It can cause fat to accumulate around your organs — more dangerous, researchers say, than those pesky love handles and jiggly thighs.

If you aren’t getting a good, consistent and regular night’s sleep, a new study suggests it could reduce your ability to handle oxidative stress, cause impacts to your health, increase motor and neurological deterioration, speed aging and ultimately cut short your life. That is, if your “biological clock” genes work the same way as those of a fruit fly. And they probably do.

Children with insomnia and shorter sleep duration had impaired modulation of heart rhythm during sleep, researchers report.

Psychologists have found that infants need adequate sleep, including regular naps, in order to effectively learn about the new world they live in.

If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don’t roll your eyes. New research shows that an hour’s nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) continues to be the third leading cause of infant death, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite a decline in SIDS that is associated with a rise in safe-sleep practices for newborns and infants. Researchers have identified that more than 96 percent of infants who died of SIDS were exposed to known risk factors, among them sleeping on their side or stomach, or exposure to tobacco smoke, and that 78 percent of SIDS cases contained multiple risk factors.

It is thought that the sleep disorder narcolepsy is an autoimmune disorder — that is, it is caused by the individual’s immune system attacking certain cells in the body — but this had not been proven definitively. But now, researchers have now identified autoantibodies (immune molecules that target a natural protein in the body rather than a protein from an infectious agent) in narcolepsy patients.

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia significantly improved sleep for patients with chronic neck or back pain and also reduced the extent to which pain interfered with their daily functioning, according to a new study.

Sleepiness at the wheel and poor sleep quality significantly increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents in adolescents.

A study in the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) report a significantly lower frequency of nightmares than patients with mild or no sleep apnea, indicating that OSA suppresses the cognitive experience of nightmare recall.

Scientists have succeeded in growing empty particles derived from a plant virus and have made them carry useful chemicals. The external surface of these nano containers could be decorated with molecules that guide them to where they are needed in the body, before the chemical load is discharged to exert its effect on diseased cells. The containers are particles of the Cowpea mosaic virus, which is ideally suited for designing biomaterial at the nanoscale.

Scientists studying the Anopheles gambiae mosquito have found that the act of feeding triggers two enzymes to form a protective barrier that prevents the mosquito’s immune defense system from clearing disease-causing agents that can be passed on to humans. Disrupting the protein barrier can trigger mosquito immune defenses to intervene and protect the insect from infection. This finding could inform new strategies for blocking malaria transmission.

A research team has shown how PEGylated polylysine dendrimers, a new type of nano-sized drug delivery system, can be altered to target either the lymphatic system or the bloodstream, which may improve the treatment of particular types of diseases.

As critical care professionals develop a better understanding of the progression of H1N1, they are becoming better prepared to treat children with severe cases. Additionally, with careful management, the pediatric critical care system is expected to be able to meet the increased demands of a flu pandemic.

By managing to express the protein that enables red blood cells infected with the malaria agent Plasmodium falciparum to bind to the placenta and by deciphering its molecular mechanisms, a team of researchers has taken an important first step in the development of a vaccine against pregnancy-associated malaria.

Discovery of an antibiotic’s capacity to improve cell function in laboratory tests is providing movement disorder researchers with leads to more desirable molecules with potentially similar traits, according to scientists.

Rhesus monkey babies born to mothers who had the flu while pregnant had smaller brains and showed other brain changes similar to those observed in human patients with schizophrenia, a study has found.

A new assay allows scientists to discover whether ticks are carrying disease-causing bacteria and which animals provided their last blood meal. Assay results suggest three emerging diseases in the St. Louis area are carried by lone star ticks feeding on record-high populations of white tailed deer.

New research reveals Small Colony Variants (SCVs) of P. aeruginosa to be a hallmark of chronic infection in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Results suggest that SCV-mediated persistence might be a good target for antimicrobial chemotherapy.

The secret world of inflammation is slowly being revealed by the application of advanced techniques in microscopy, as shown in a new study. Researchers used 2-photon microscopy to identify how killer T lymphocytes behaved when they enter sites of inflammation caused by the parasite Leishmania donovani, and which infected cells they were able to recognize.

More high risk cases of human papilloma virus could be detected by offering home testing kits to women who do not come forward for cervical screening, according to new research.

Researchers in Canada have detected a novel oncolytic viral therapy against prostate cancer with use of a virus called the reovirus, according to a new study.

In some individuals the common herpes virus HHV-6 can integrate into structures at the end of chromosomes and be reactivated to an infectious form.