Mentioned 9 times on 1 show.
“side effects, and the risk of dependence. We'll spend extra time discussing the potential that DORAs, the newest class of sleep medications, might have for Alzheimer's prevention in high-risk patients. And we'll discuss some off-label medications and dietary supplements used for sleep, although that's not our focus.”
“But DORAs don't do that. They work by dialing down one of the brain's primary wakefulness systems, specifically the orexin system. And in doing so, they allow your natural sleep processes to take over.”
“sleep is not just semantic. It shows up in the outcomes. DORAs outperformed other drugs on sleep efficiency, which is the amount of time you're sleeping relative to how much time you're in bed, and total sleep time.”
“about DORAs is that they consistently preserve or minimally alter sleep architecture, with little or no effect on slow-wave sleep and even improvements in REM sleep. So why does this matter?”
“It's specific to the mechanism of DORAs. Now, of course, let's start with some caveats. First, few of these benefits were observed in the female mice, which the investigators chalked up to their having less severe tau pathology in the first place.”
“adults or combined with other CNS depressants. Several less common side effects of DORAs resemble type 1 narcolepsy, a deficiency of orexin signaling that is often caused by the loss of orexigenic neurons.”
“and next-day impairment. From a misuse standpoint, DORAs appear to have a lower abuse potential than benzodiazepines or Z-drugs, and controlled studies have generally found low scores on drug-liking instruments at therapeutic doses.”
“misuse is always possible. If you step back, DORAs are attractive to patients with narcolepsy, but they can also be effective because they target wakefulness directly rather than forcing sedation. And they tend to preserve the underlying structure of sleep.”
“cheapest, most accessible sleep aids carry exactly the kind of long-term neurological risks that the modern DORAs may help prevent. The bottom line is these have a role for very short-term use only. Okay, let's talk about dietary supplements. Now, we've already mentioned one briefly, which is melatonin, but there's actually a number of other supplements that are talked about for sleep.”