A columnist for The Washington Post tries a $5,000 Sleep Number 360 smart bed and investigates other sleep tech that’s flooding the market. Does any of it work?

Sleep Number embeds sensors throughout its mattresses, which start at $1,000. They measure each side of the bed for movement — a proxy for restful and restless sleep — as well as heart rate and respiration. The best part: Without futzing with apps, it activates every time it feels someone in the bed and saves data to the cloud.

For $150, there’s a new FDA-listed wireless tracker called Beddr SleepTuner that measures even more. Pop the postage-stamp-size sensor on your forehead (via a medical-grade sticker), and in addition to recording your head’s movement, it reads the oxygen in your blood and tries to identify when you stop breathing. That can help you understand why you might be waking up unrested — also an indicator you should see a doctor about sleep apnea.

And there’s a free app called SleepScore that tracks sleep stages using sonar. Place a phone running it by your

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Men’s Health investigates the real cost of lost shut-eye and asks whether we can relearn how to rest easy.

Two-thirds of adults in developed nations are now falling short of the recommended eight hours a night. But while there has been a global rise in sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea, this is less a medical issue than a social one. Even those with the capacity to sleep well aren’t doing enough of it.

In Japan, where the epidemic is at its most extreme, the average time spent asleep is just six hours and 22 minutes. There are even phrases in the language for falling asleep in public (inemuri) and dying from the exhaustion of overwork (karōshi).

The link between poor sleep and illness is far from casual. In one study, adults over the age of 45 who slept for less than six hours a night were 200% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in their lifetime than those who slept seven or eight hours.

Get the full story at www.menshealth.com

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Identifying the association is important as treatment of the obstructive sleep apnea is often associated with an improved control of the atrial fibrillation and maintenance of rhythm control post cardioversion, reports Cardiac Rhythm News.

Moreover, atrial structural remodelling and conduction changes can occur with prolonged exposure to obstructive sleep apnoea over time, which consequently impairs treatment by all modalities if left untreated.

Get the full story at cardiacrhythmnews.com

Integer, a leading medical device outsource manufacturer, has entered into a new development agreement and a new supply agreement with Respicardia Inc. Under the agreements, Integer will be Respicardia’s development partner and majority supplier of the remedē implantable pulse generator (IPG) and related products for 7 years, the first 5 ½ years as an exclusive supplier.

“We’re honored to continue supporting Respicardia in bringing their therapy to market,” says Tony Gonzalez, president of Integer’s Cardiac Rhythm Management and Neuromodulation product line, in a release. “We supported their initial system development as they worked through their clinical studies, so it’s exciting to see their transition to commercialization. These agreements highlight Integer’s breadth of capabilities to support customers with design, development, and manufacturing of custom IPG systems. Our end-to-end expertise will help Respicardia ensure the utmost quality and reliability of their products.”

Peter Sommerness, president and CEO of Respicardia, says, “In product innovation, quality, and uncompromising clinical performance, Integer-manufactured devices are second-to-none. Integer is recognized as an innovative company that shares our vision to improve patient quality of life and overall health.

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Blue Cross of Idaho has issued a positive coverage policy of Inspire Medical Systems Inc’s Inspire upper airway stimulation therapy for obstructive sleep apnea. This is the first coverage policy issued following BCBS Evidence Street’s January 7, 2019 report, which stated there is sufficient evidence to determine that Inspire therapy results in a meaningful improvement in net health outcomes for patients meeting specified criteria.

Blue Cross of Idaho is a not-for-profit mutual insurance company covering approximately 500,000 members. Blue Cross of Idaho is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA). The Blue Cross of Idaho policy is effective March 20, 2019. This policy has a few changes from the Evidence Street summary including a BMI of less than 32. This Blue Cross of Idaho is the first policy to include coverage for adolescents who have Down’s syndrome. It is important to note that this indication is not yet approved by the FDA.

In addition to Blue Cross of Idaho, an additional positive coverage policy became effective January 1, 2019 with Ascension Smart Health. These

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People who sleep less than 6 hours a night may be at increased risk of cardiovascular disease compared with those who sleep between 7 and 8 hours, suggests a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Poor quality sleep increases the risk of atherosclerosis—plaque buildup in the arteries throughout the body—according to the study.

“Cardiovascular disease is a major global problem, and we are preventing and treating it using several approaches, including pharmaceuticals, physical activity, and diet. But this study emphasizes we have to include sleep as one of the weapons we use to fight heart disease—a factor we are compromising every day,” says senior study author José M. Ordovás, PhD, researcher at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) in Madrid and director of nutrition and genomics at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, in a release. “This is the first study to show that objectively measured sleep is independently associated with atherosclerosis throughout the body, not just in the heart.”

Previous studies have

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Obstructive sleep apnea is a chronic condition, yet many clinicians and patients focus on the first 90 days. Some stakeholders envision years-long followup that considers the dynamic nature of the sleep disorder.

By Sree Roy

The vast majority of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) cases require a lifetime of management to control—similar to other chronic disorders such as hypertension and diabetes. But the care pathway for many OSA patients more closely resembles that of people with surgical diseases such as appendicitis or cataracts: A flurry of activity until diagnosis, a sense of urgency to implement a therapy, then short-term followup.

Sleep apnea care focuses on the first 90 days. This is a reflection of factors such as payor requirements (notably, Medicare’s CPAP compliance guideline stating it won’t pay for continued therapy without adherence in that time frame), studies showing patients’ initial therapy usage informs later usage, and time constraints on sleep professionals.

But the emphasis on those first 90 days coupled with less focus on optimizing long-term care has its consequences. Some patients are shortchanged of lifelong symptom abatement and comorbidity

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An observant sleep medicine physician approached the school with a pitch: expose third- and fourth-year students to the sleep subspecialty.

By Lisa Spear

Medical school curriculums generally don’t take a deep dive into sleep medicine. Some medical students may not even realize they have the option to subspecialize in sleep. This gap in education may be fueling a shortage of sleep medicine physicians.

Some medical schools are taking steps to change that. The University of North Carolina (UNC) in Ashville, NC, recently appointed Muhammad Sayed, MD, RST, RPSGT, to develop a sleep medicine curriculum in his new role as an assistant professor.

Through this program, third- and fourth-year students will have the opportunity to do rotations at the Charles George VA Medical Center in Asheville, NC, part of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. This is where Sayed will continue to work as chief of sleep medicine while he supervises the UNC program.

Sayed will spend time working one-on-one with students and giving lectures on campus. He hopes that through this initiative more future physicians will be exposed to and

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