Saturday, December 29, 2007

Would you like cream and sugar with your nasal spray?

Again, my apologies for the lack of posting lately. Now that I've gotten the major headache holiday out of the way, hopefully things will be getting back to normal.

But lately, I've been exhausted...and perhaps some higher power was trying to tell me something by leading me to this article from wired.com about a nasal spray that helps eliminate the effects of sleepiness. (And ironically enough, it's currently almost 2 a.m.)

A study published in this week's The Journal of Neuroscience showed that a nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in a group of monkeys and allowed them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests.

The hormone could potentially help the 70 percent of Americans who do not get the recommended eight hours of sleep a night, myself included.

The authors of the study claim that orexin A reduces the effects of sleep deprivation but does not cause edginess and is apparently non-addictive.

Still, the spray would initially be used to treat people suffering from narcolepsy--a condition that the study states is caused by lack of orexin A in the brain. For the spray to become available to the average joe could take almost a decade, depending on the Food and Drug Administration's approval process.

But then it'll totally be so long coffee, hello nasal spray!!

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