By NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET
Published: September 18, 2013
This week’s Ask an Expert features Orfeu Marcello Buxton, a neuroscientist who will answer questions about the causes and health consequences of sleep deficiency, particularly in middle age. He researches chronic sleep deficiency in the workplace and home and how it contributes to disorders like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
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Orfeu Marcello Buxton,
neuroscientist and
sleep researcher. |
Dr. Buxton is an associate neuroscientist the Division of Sleep Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, as well as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He received his doctorate from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Dr. Buxton notes that adults can express their priorities “in what we don’t do,” and too often sleep (along with healthy behavior) gets short-changed. But sleep, he says, is a foundation of healthy aging and a source of resilience. His research, for example, has shown that sleep restriction or disruption increases obesity and diabetes risk, by decreasing insulin secretion, increasing blood glucose levels slowing metabolism (the study is here). He has also found that characteristics of the work environment, including managers’ actions, can affect sleep (study is here).
Here are examples of some questions that Dr. Buxton is prepared to answer. (Note: Dr. Buxton is a researcher, not a physician, and he emphasizes that his responses should not take the place of recommendations from your health care provider.)
1. Why is sleep important?
2. What are some mechanisms by which sleep affects metabolism, and obesity and diabetes risk?
3. Why do we now think that work or the workplace affect sleep?
