Asthma and irregular sleep patterns
Dr Hannah Durrington is a consultant in respiratory medicine and a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Manchester. Her specialism is on body clocks and asthma symptoms. We’ve supported some of her previous research, which you can read more about here. We recently worked with Hannah to find out how irregular sleep patterns affected asthma symptoms.
By irregular sleep patterns, we mean people who don’t sleep regularly during the night, or people who change their sleeping patterns often. This includes shift workers and people who regularly travel internationally and experience jetlag..
From a small survey of 141 people, we found some very significant and clear patterns. As a result of their irregular sleeping patterns, 40% of respondents had to change the time of day they took their medication. 66% of respondents had to change the amount of medication, of which 88% had to use their reliever medication more, while 38% had to increase the strength of their preventer medication.
Over half of the respondents said that their asthma symptoms are worse or more frequent since their sleep pattern became irregular. For many, this has had an impact on their lives and lifestyles.
These are really exciting findings which will be used to make the case for further research, and hopefully address the unmet need in this area.
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