A tipple before bedtime may get you off to sleep faster but it can disrupt your night's slumber, say researchers who have reviewed the evidence.

The London Sleep Centre team says studies show alcohol upsets our normal sleep cycles.

While it cuts the time it takes to first nod off and sends us into a deep sleep, it also robs us of one of our most satisfying types of sleep, where dreams occur.

Used too often, it can cause insomnia.

Many advocate a nightcap - nursing homes and hospital wards have even been known to serve alcohol - but Dr Irshaad Ebrahim and his team advise against it.
Fragmented sleep

Dr Ebrahim, medical director at the London Sleep Centre and co-author of the latest review, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, said: "We should be very cautious about drinking on a regular basis.

"One or two glasses might be nice in the short term, but if you continue to use a tipple before bedtime it can cause significant problems.

"If you do have a drink, it's best to leave an hour and a half to two hours before going to bed so the alcohol is already wearing off."

He said people could become dependent on alcohol for sleep.

And it could make sleep less restful and turn people into snorers.

"With increasing doses, alcohol suppresses our breathing. It can turn non-snorers into snorers and snorers into people with sleep apnoea - where the breathing's interrupted."

From the hundred or more studies that Dr Ebrahim's team looked at, they analysed 20 in detail and found alcohol appeared to change sleep in three ways.

Firstly, it accelerates sleep onset, meaning we drop off faster.

Next, it sends us into a very deep sleep.

These two changes - which are identical to those seen in people who take antidepressant medication - may be appealing and may explain why some people with insomnia use alcohol.

But the third change - fragmented sleep patterns the second half of the night - is less pleasant.

Alcohol reduces how much time we spend in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - the stage of sleep where dreams generally occur.

As a consequence, the sleep may feel less restful, said Dr Ebrahim.

Chris Idzikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, said: "Alcohol on the whole is not useful for improving a whole night's sleep. Sleep may be deeper to start with, but then becomes disrupted. Additionally, that deeper sleep will probably promote snoring and poorer breathing. So, one shouldn't expect better sleep with alcohol."

The Sleep Council said: "Don't over-indulge. Too much food or alcohol, especially late at night, just before bedtime, can play havoc with sleep patterns.

"Alcohol may help you fall asleep initially, but will interrupt your sleep later on in the night. Plus you may wake dehydrated and needing the loo."

Infectious bacteria have for the first time been caught performing "biological alchemy" to transform parts of a host body into those more suited to their purposes, by a team in Edinburgh.

The study, in the journal Cell, showed leprosy-causing bacteria turning nerves into stem cells and muscle.

The authors said the "clever and sophisticated" technique could further therapies and stem-cell research.

Experts described the discovery as "amazing" and "exciting".

Alchemists may have failed to morph base metals into gold, but a team at the University of Edinburgh has shown that bacteria can transform parts of the body into something more valuable to them.

It is a feat that scientists have already achieved in the laboratory. Skin cells have been transformed into flexible stem cells that can become any of the body's building blocks from heart muscle to brain cells.

One of the researchers, Prof Anura Rambukkana, said: "Our body's cells can be manipulated and why would a bacterium not take advantage of that?"
Master manipulators

Experiments on mice and cells grown in the laboratory showed the leprosy bug infected nerve cells. Then over a period of a few weeks the bacteria began to subvert the nerves for their own ends. The chemistry of the cells changed and they became stem cells.

These can grow and spread around the body, unlike the static nerves.

"This is a stem cell that is generated by the body's own tissue so the immune system does not recognise it and they can get any place they want without being attacked," said Prof Rambukkana.

Those cells could lodge inside muscle and become muscle cells.

"We realised, 'Wow, this is something very, very striking'.

"It's the first time a bacterial infection has been shown to make stem cells, that's the big thing here."
'Alchemy'

He hopes the findings will increase understanding of leprosy and lead to new ways of developing stem cells - which have been touted as future treatments for a range of diseases.

Prof Rambukkana also believes it is "probable" that other species of bacteria would have evolved the same ability to reprogramme their host.

Prof Chris Mason, a specialist in stem cell research at University College London, said: "The ability of bacteria to convert one mammalian cell type to another is 'alchemy' by nature on a grand scale.

"Whilst this amazing discovery is in a mouse model, it highlights the extraordinary complexity of the interactions between mammals and bacteria and the ingenuity of scientists to uncover disease mechanisms that a decade ago would have been beyond science fiction.

"The next essential step is to translate this valuable piece of knowledge into tangible benefits for patients - a process that may take a decade before its relevance to clinical medicine is fully understood."

Prof Diana Lockwood, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "Their finding that bacteria can reprogramme cells is very interesting and exciting."

However, she cautioned that there was "quite a gap between this and clinical leprosy and I don't think it's going to lead to new treatments".

Dr Rob Buckle, head of regenerative medicine at the Medical Research Council, said: "This discovery is important not just for our understanding and treatment of bacterial disease, but for the rapidly progressing field of regenerative medicine."

A team of Queensland researchers is close to developing a new treatment for severe headaches, which consists of vitamin B and folate supplements.

The remedy would help the 20 per cent of migraine sufferers whose condition is genetic, said Griffith University postdoctoral researcher Bridget Maher.

Telling to a news agency she said that it basically reduces the frequency and severity of the migraines, the Herald sun reported.

According to her, one in five people prone to migraines have an enzyme that doesn`t work as well as other people. She said supplementing them with vitamin B and folate can treat that enzyme`s defect.

Migraines linked to genetics are also associated with auras, which refers to the experience of temporary neurological disturbances such as seeing stars, getting pins and needles and numbness.

The team at Griffith is working on the correct dose of the supplements and Maher has asserted that the treatment could be on the market in the next few years.

Mice exposed to normal bacteria of the GI tract (gut microbes) in their early life develop resistance against autoimmune disease, according to new research.

The study may also have uncovered reasons why females are at greater risk of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus compared to males.

Researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) found that when female mice at high risk of autoimmune (type 1) diabetes were exposed to normal gut bacteria from adult male mice, they were strongly protected against the disease.

In this type of mouse strain, more than 85 percent of females develop autoimmune diabetes due to strong genetic risk factors. In contrast, only 25 percent of the females developed the disease after they were given normal male gut microbes early in life.

"Our findings suggest potential strategies for using normal gut bacteria to block progression of insulin-dependent diabetes in kids who have high genetic risk," says principal investigator Dr. Jayne Danska, senior scientist in Genetics and Genome Biology at SickKids and Professor in the Departments of Immunology and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto.

A second unexpected finding was the effects of the gut microbe treatments on sex hormones. "We were surprised to see that when young female mice received normal gut microbes from adult males, their testosterone levels rose. We then showed that this hormone was essential for the gut microbe treatment to protect against the disease. It was completely unexpected to find that the sex of an animal determines aspects of their gut microbe composition, that these microbes affect sex hormone levels, and that the hormones in turn regulate an immune-mediated disease," says Dr. Danska.

The findings support the ``hygiene hypothesis,`` which suggests that the dramatic increase in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases over the past 50 years results from changes in our exposure to microbes.
Gut microbes are essential for normal development and training of the immune system, for extracting nutrients from our food, and for protecting us from some infectious diseases.

The study was recently published in the journal Science.

A key discovery involving a tiny microRNA molecule shows that it could ward off prostate cancer, giving hope to thousands of patients worldwide.

Researchers found that many prostate cancer cells contain less of microRNA molecules, spurring their rapid growth. MicroRNAs are small and, unlike double-stranded DNA, consist of a single strand of nucleotides, encoded in plant and animal genome.

Keith Giles and Michael Epis from Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR) Lab for Hormone Dependent Cancer, headed by Peter Leedman, spent several years investigating the role of a microRNA in prostate cancer, the Journal of Biological Chemistry reports.

"We`ve now confirmed that many prostate cancers contain less of this microRNA molecule, and we have some understanding of how this might occur," explained Giles, according to a WAIMR statement.

"Our research suggests that this microRNA normally works as a brake on prostate cell growth, so perhaps if we can put it back into prostate cancer cells then we can restore that brake," Giles said.