Patients suffering from functional dyspepsia, a gastrointestinal disease, are more than three times more likely to develop sleeping disorders than healthy patients, according to a study entitled "Functional Dyspepsia: A Risk Factor for Disordered Sleep" conducted by Brian Lacy, a professor at Dartmouth Medical School. The study was the first to examine the connection between dyspepsia and sleeping disorders, Lacy said.
Functional dyspepsia a disorder of the nerves in the upper gastrointestinal tract affects approximately 10 percent of American adults, according to Lacy. The disease causes chronic abdominal pain, pressure in the upper abdomen and a feeling of fullness, Lacy said. The condition typically worsens after eating, causing nausea, he said.
Patients in the study with functional dyspepsia were 3.25 times more likely to suffer from sleep disorders, such as insomnia, than were healthy patients, who were used as a control group in the study, Lacy said.
Lacy said that the connection between dyspepsia and trouble sleeping is a "vicious cycle" in which each disorder worsens the other.
"If you have pain in your abdomen, it is going to be harder to fall asleep," Lacy said. "If you have problems sleeping, you have a significant change in how you sense pain."
A lack of sleep increases the body's sensitivity to pain, which in turn increases the discomfort caused by functional dyspepsia, Lacy said.
The study also found that women who have the disease are more than twice as likely to develop sleep disorders than men who have the disease, Lacy said.
Lacy said he was not sure of the cause of this difference because the study did not ask gender-specific questions, but he may explore the issue in the future.
Regular exercise can reduce the likelihood of developing a sleep disorder, according to the study. In addition to causing tiredness, exercise increases the body's tolerance to pain and counteracts the effects of fatigue, Lacy said.
Patients suffering from the disease were also more prone to anxiety and depression than healthy patients, Lacy said. While anxiety and depression are "driving factors" that correlate with dyspepsia, he said he was unsure if these factors cause the disease.
Lacy speculated that anxiety and depression could further increase pain sensitivity, leading people to feel the effects of dyspepsia more strongly.
The use of alcohol and tobacco did not appear to make patients with dyspepsia more prone to sleeping disorders, Lacy said.
In his next study, Lacy said he wants to specifically track hours of sleep to determine if patients sleep more as their dyspepsia symptoms improve with treatment.
"This is such a prevalent problem," Lacy said. "Let's look into it more thoroughly."
Lacy presented his findings at the American College of Gastroenterology's 75th Annual meeting last week in San Antonio, Texas.
