Wellnews by Scott LaFee

Next time you're confronted with a new problem, take a nap.

Snoozing has long been known to boost cognitive performance, but a new study by Sara Mednick, a UCSD assistant professor of psychiatry, suggests that a particular stage of sleep called rapid eye movement or REM enhances creative processing and thinking.

"We found that — for creative problems that you've already been working on — the passage of time is enough to find solutions," said Mednick. "However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity."

Mednick said it appears that REM sleep stimulates associative networks, allowing the brain to make new and useful associations between unrelated ideas.

A critical debate in sleep research has been whether improvements in behavioral performance are the result of sleep-specific enhancements or simply a reduction of interference. In other words, the brain wasn't quite as efficient while awake because conscious events frequently interfered with memory consolidation.

Mednick was able to control for interference by comparing sleep periods with quiet rest periods with no verbal input.

GET ME THAT. STAT!

The American Cancer Society reports a 19.2 percent drop in cancer deaths among men from 1990 to 2005 and a corresponding 11.4 percent drop in women's cancer deaths. That translates to approximately 650,000 Americans still living thanks to advances in cancer prevention, detection and treatment.

NUMBER CRUNCHER

A single serving of Frito-Lay Honey Roasted Peanuts (28 grams or 3 tablespoons) contains 170 calories, 117 from fat. It has 13 grams of total fat or 20 percent of the recommended total fat intake for a 2,000-calorie daily diet.

It also contains 85 milligrams of sodium (4 percent); 7 grams of total carbohydrates (2 percent); 2 g of dietary fiber (8 percent); 1 g of sugar; and 7 g of protein.

MEDTRONICA

Codeblog

codeblog.com

Mostly written by a longtime intensive-care nurse, this blog consists of behind-the-screens hospital stories, advice to young and wanna-be nurses and various ruminations apparently thought up during night rounds.

Occasionally, patients tell their side of the story, too.

STORIES FOR THE WAITING ROOM

A new study suggests those special stockings worn by recovering stroke patients to prevent blood clots in their legs don't work.

About two-thirds of stroke patients can't walk when hospitalized; roughly 20 percent develop blood clots in their legs. Doctors often prescribe the tight thigh-high stockings that are supposed to improve circulation and prevent clots, which can be fatal if they break away and reach the heart or lungs.

But a study of 2,500 stroke patients in Australia, Britain and Italy found the stockings did not reduce the chance of clotting, and sometimes caused other problems like skin ulcers and blisters.

Though not as popular in the United States as in Europe, the American Heart Association (AHA) has advised doctors to consider using the stockings as part of patients' post-stroke therapy, either in combination with an anti-clotting drug treatment or alone if a patient can't take anti-clotting drugs.

"We have used these stockings because we assume they work," Dr. Ralph Sacco, president-elect of the AHA told USA Today. "But sometimes you're surprised when you find out the truth with a randomized trial."

PHOBIA OF THE WEEK

Verbophobia — fear of words

LAST WORDS

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.

— British poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

To find out more about Scott Lafee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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