Health Tip: Teen Girls Need Lots of Sleep

March 16, 2006 08:45:44 PM PST

(HealthDay News) -- Research shows that teen and pre-teen girls need more than nine hours of sleep a night.

Without it, they become cranky, don't do as well at school, and may feel depressed.

Natural changes in the body may keep teenage girls wide awake long after they're supposed to be asleep, according to Girl Power, a national public education campaign sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

So what can teen girls do to make it easier to fall asleep? Girl Power suggests keeping regular bedtime hours, relaxing before going to bed (avoid reading scary novels), playing sports in the afternoon but not right before bed, and avoiding foods and drinks that contain caffeine.

Gene Clue May Lead to Epilepsy Treatments

Scientists say they've pinpointed a gene in epilepsy patients that's also associated with a movement disorder called paroxysmal dyskinesia (PD).

The Cleveland Clinic study is the first to provide genetic evidence that the co-existence of epilepsy and PD represents a new syndrome. The finding could help in the development of new treatments for people with this condition, the researchers said.

"Epilepsy and movement disorders like paroxysmal dyskinesia are distinct diseases, but increasingly they are found to affect the same patient or the same family. The study is significant clinically because it raises awareness of coexistent epilepsy and PD as a distinct clinical entity," Qing Wang, one of the study's lead investigators, said in a prepared statement. He is director of the Center for Cardiovascular Genetics and the Department of Molecular Cardiology at The Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute.

Wang and his colleagues conducted a genetic analysis on a large, multi-generational family with 16 members diagnosed with either epilepsy, PD, or both conditions.

The scientists identified a mutation in a gene called KCNMA1, which makes the BK potassium ion channel, an important structure lying on the surface of cells. This mutation appeared linked to both epilepsy and PD.

The mutation was found only in the 16 family members with either epilepsy or PD, the researchers said. It was not found in any of the 500 healthy people in the control group.

"Ion channels are attractive targets for drug development because they are proteins on the surface of cells. We found that patients in our study have a hyperactive KCNMA1 gene. This means that a pharmaceutical agent that block the BK potassium channel may be effective in preventing epilepsy and PD in these patients," Wang said.

The findings were published June 5 in the online edition of Nature Genetics.

More information

The Epilepsy Foundation has more about epilepsy.