Biomarkers of Insufficient Sleep and Sleepiness

Sleep and wakefulness disorders impact 50 to 70 million Americans and insufficient sleep is epidemic with over 50% of Americans reporting less than 7 hours of sleep per night. Health problems associated with insufficient sleep include inflammation, depression and anxiety, diabetes, stress, drug abuse, poor quality of life, obesity, and fatigue related accidents on the job/while driving. While the contribution of sleep to overall health, well-being, and public safety is recognized, no established clinical biomarkers of sleep deficiency exist. Such biomarkers would have utility as road-side biomarkers of sleepiness (e.g., drowsy driving), monitoring on the job fatigue/fitness for duty (e.g., transportation, military ops health care), monitoring sleep health, as well as for clinical diagnostics and measures of clinical treatment outcomes. Thus, investigators designed a controlled laboratory insufficient sleep protocol utilizing metabolomics to identify biomarkers of insufficient sleep. Investigators propose to identify changes in metabolites that consistently occur during insufficient sleep. As an exploratory outcome investigators will examine associated changes in metabolites and cognitive performance during insufficient sleep.