title: Sleep deprivation and hormone therapy in postmenopausal women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Sleep complaints increase after menopause, but literature on the effect of postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) on sleep is controversial. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of ageing and HT on sleep quality, assessed using polysomnography, and on the accuracy of the subjective estimation of sleep quality in women before and after sleep deprivation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty postmenopausal women (aged 58-72 years) were recruited: 10 HT-users and 10 non-HT-users. Eleven young women (aged 20-26 years) served as controls. Polysomnography and subjective sleep quality were measured on four consecutive nights: adaptation, baseline, 40-h sleep deprivation and recovery.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although the postmenopausal women slept worse than the controls at baseline, and in particular during the recovery night, their recovery response to sleep deprivation was well preserved. At baseline, HT-users had a shorter latency to rapid eye movement (REM) (P=0.043), with fewer awakenings from slow wave sleep (SWS) (P=0.029) but more from REM (P=0.033) than non-HT-users. During recovery, the HT-users had more stage 2 sleep (P=0.048) and less slow wave activity (SWA) in the first non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep episode (P=0.021) than the non-HT-users. The poor correlation between subjective and objective sleep quality at baseline became significant during recovery.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although sleep in postmenopausal women was worse than in young controls, the recovery response following sleep deprivation was relatively well preserved. HT offered no significant advantage to sleep at baseline and slightly weakened the recovery response to prolonged wakefulness.
authors.affiliation: Sleep Research Unit, Department of Physiology, University of Turku, Dentalia, Lemminkäisenkatu 2, Turku, Finland. nea.kalleinen@utu.fi
authors.forename: Nea
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kalleinen
authors.forename: Olli
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Polo
authors.forename: Sari-Leena
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Himanen
authors.forename: Atte
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Joutsen
authors.forename: Anna S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Urrila
authors.forename: Päivi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Polo-Kantola
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D004958:Estradiol / Q000627:therapeutic use; D015914:Estrogen Replacement Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009640:Norethindrone / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017286:Polysomnography; D017698:Postmenopause / Q000502:physiology*; D012890:Sleep / Q000187:drug effects; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
chemical_list: D004958:Estradiol; D009640:Norethindrone