Grace Whitfield

Before this gets forwarded to every parent who’s up at 3 a.m.: it’s a review of reviews. Nobody followed a new group of people here. The authors gathered about 20 existing reviews and pooled what they found. That’s a good way to see where the evidence agrees. It can only be as good as the studies underneath it, and the headline’s list of diseases reads scarier than that.

“Researchers from Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland analyzed approximately 20 comprehensive review studies, involving millions of participants across multiple countries, to evaluate the impact of insomnia on health. The study, published Sunday in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews, found that insomnia was linked to a 26% increased risk of stroke. The results, which looked at multiple other studies also showed individuals with insomnia were more likely to have depression and attempted suicide compared to those without insomnia.”

AInsomnia linked to higher risk of dementia, suicide, stroke and other major health issues: Studyabcnews.com

Associations, in the authors’ own words. The sleep doctor in the same piece explains why that matters: anxiety and depression wreck sleep, and bad sleep feeds anxiety and depression. Which came first isn’t something this kind of study can sort out.

“Researchers cautioned that the new findings only show associations and do not prove that insomnia directly causes the health problems examined.”

AInsomnia linked to higher risk of dementia, suicide, stroke and other major health issues: Study· abcnews.com

The best sentence in the article came from one of the authors.

“"I would like to emphasize that people should not be frightened by these results. An increased risk at the population level does not mean that an individual with insomnia will develop dementia, depression or have a stroke," Dr. Stefan Seidel, one of the study authors and professor of neurology at the Medical University of Vienna, told ABC News.”

AInsomnia linked to higher risk of dementia, suicide, stroke and other major health issues: Study· abcnews.com

And what I’d actually tell a patient. If sleep has been bad for months, bring it up, and expect the first answer to be CBT, not a prescription. It’s more work than a pill. It’s also the treatment.

“"The gold standard of treatment for insomnia is CBT, but it's difficult and it's time-consuming and it's a lot of effort, especially for someone with chronic insomnia," Hamilton said. "But it is worth it."”

AInsomnia linked to higher risk of dementia, suicide, stroke and other major health issues: Study· abcnews.com

Some context on the big book Oz holds up. That’s the “Medicare & You” handbook, and it goes out every fall because Medicare has to tell beneficiaries each year what their coverage is. Nobody reads it cover to cover, and it isn’t meant to be read that way. You look up your part of it when you need it. You can already switch to the electronic copy instead of the paper one.

The real problem he’s pointing at is choosing a plan. Part B timing, whether you’re still working, drug plans, penalties that last for life. If America.gov can walk someone through that honestly, it’s worth more than the $100 million in printing. Signing up isn’t the hard part. Getting it right the first time is.

Four fewer major cardiovascular events per 100 people over three years. That's the absolute benefit this study found for staying on a GLP-1 rather than a sulfonylurea, and it's the figure I'd want a patient to hear before the 18%. The 22% in the summary is a different comparison, two years off the drug against staying on. It's all data on 333,687 veterans, not a trial, and people who stay on a drug for three years tend to differ from people who stop in ways an observational study can only partly adjust for.

“Compared with participants taking sulfonylureas, those who consistently stayed on GLP-1 therapy had an 18% lower risk of major cardiovascular events. That translated to about four fewer major cardiovascular events for every 100 people over three years.”

SStopping Ozempic may raise heart attack and stroke risksciencedaily.com