Sleepless Tots May Become
Troubled Teens - Study

Sleepless toddlers are more likely to grow into troubled teens who smoke, abuse alcohol and use illegal drugs, U.S. researchers reported.

The study, which involved only boys, suggests that some as-yet unknown brain mechanism may be involved in both sleeplessness and a tendency to addiction, the researchers at the University of Michigan Health System said.

The finding does not mean that poor sleep causes later addiction problems, stressed University of Michigan psychiatry professor Dr. Kirk Brower.

"Our finding sees early childhood sleep disturbances as a marker, or predictor, for early use of drugs and alcohol in adolescence, not a predetermined trajectory," Brower said in a statement.

"But for parents, this is one more reason to take your child's sleep problems seriously, not to dismiss them, and to talk with your child's pediatrician or family doctor."

Brower's team, led by researcher Maria Wong, studied 257 boys and their parents for 10 years. They questioned the boys and their parents at regular intervals.

At ages 3 to 5 the mothers were asked to report whether their sons had trouble sleeping, or were overtired during the day, using a standard measure. They were asked about behavior problems when the boys were 9 to 11.

When the boys were 12 to 14, they were surveyed using a confidential written questionnaire.

Boys who slept poorly as young children were 2.3 times more likely to have started using alcohol by age 14, and 2.3 times more likely to smoke cigarettes than boys whose mothers had not noticed any sleep issues.

They were also 2.6 times more likely to have used marijuana, and 2.2 times more likely to have used any illicit drugs, the researchers report in the April issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Overall, a third of the children were reported to have had a sleep problem in early childhood, either trouble sleeping, overtiredness, or both.

By age 12 to 14, about 32 percent of the boys had started drinking alcohol, and 40 percent said they had been drunk at least once. About 10 percent regularly smoked cigarettes, and 17 percent had used at least one kind of illicit drug.

The link between sleep problems and substance abuse held true even after depression, aggression, attention problems and parental alcoholism were taken into account, Wong's team said.

"It appears to indicate some shared neurobiological dysfunction whose details we don't yet know," said Robert Zucker, director of the research center where the work was done.

The researchers studied only white boys and are now working on data involving girls.

Reference Source 89

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