“Insomnia is a very important problem, it affects about 15% of the general population when we talk about chronic insomnia: therefore not simply the problem of not having slept well at night. This is a very important prevalence data. The consequences of insomnia are very important, not only those that are the immediate consequences that the subject has the day after having slept badly, but the consequences are also long-term. Just think of the fact that sleep is an important inhibitor of cortisol and therefore if the subject does not sleep well the consequence is that the blood pressure remains high and therefore this is a greater risk of hypertension, one of the factors that must be considered. Another very important aspect is also that relating to weight: the fact of not sleeping well also leads to the release of a particular hormone which is ghrelin, the hormone that causes me to eat more and therefore consequently to have the risk of a obesity. Another equally important thing are the effects on cognitive functions: we know that during the night a system called the glymphatic system works in our brain, which is a sort of scavenger that cleans the brain of all waste and proteins that need to be degraded. Among these proteins there is Betamyloid and if the subject sleeps badly, unfortunately Betamyloid accumulates and this can lead to an increased risk of a disease such as Alzheimer’s disease. So it is definitely a fundamental aspect to take into consideration. Today we have many therapeutic options to treat insomnia, the important thing is to make the right framework and try to arrive at a correct diagnosis. The new category of drugs works in a completely different way compared to those drugs we have so far that mainly exploited the action on the Gaba system. Instead, these new drugs, this new category, are trying to inhibit the centers of wakefulness. So by occupying the receptors of a substance called orexin, which is the substance that makes me stay very awake, these drugs make it easier for the subject to fall into a physiological sleep “.
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