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Health Check: Do You Use Your Phone in the Night?

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cropped_man-on-phone-in-bed.jpg

2019/02/06 GMT

Do You Use Your Phone in the Night?

BBC World Service - Health Check, Do You Use Your Phone in the Night?

The results of a study on the night-time phone habits of 25,000 Radio Denmark listeners

The SmartSleep study which looked at the night-time phone habits of 25,000 Danish people; Haemophilia care in Kenya; Can aerobic exercise improve thinking skills in younger people?

Epidemiologists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark have been investigating whether phones in the bedroom might affect people’s health by keeping them awake, waking them up or affecting the quality of their sleep. Inspired by the BBC Loneliness Experiment, they turned to Radio Denmark to help gather their data. They had a fantastic response and 25,000 Radio Denmark listeners took part in the SleepSmart study. Naja Hulvej Rod, professor of Stress Epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen, tells Health Check presenter Claudia Hammond about the results.

Because haemophilia is one of the most expensive conditions to treat, where you are born affects survival rates. Life expectancies in Western Europe and North America have crept up since the 1950s to approaching normal today. In the Western world, haemophiliacs can lead relatively normal lives due mainly to the availability of preventative transfusions of clotting factors a few times a week. However 60% of an estimated 475,000 haemophiliacs globally are undiagnosed and around 75% of them have little or no access to these medicines because they are completely unaffordable. In Kenya, a lack of knowledge and resources to treat haemophilia perpetuates myths and stigma, while the crippling cost of treatment or physically disabling effects of untreated bleeds keeps sufferers hidden. But a small band of haemophilia champions are fighting to bring about big change. Hannah McNeish reports from Muranga, a small town in central Kenya. 

It has long been known that people who exercise a lot have a lower risk of developing dementia later in life.  But now new research suggests that aerobic exercise eg running, cycling and swimming, could also improve executive function in younger people. The research was conducted by Yaakov Stern, professor of Neuropsychology at Columbia University Medical Centre, and has recently been published in the journal Neurology.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond 
Producer: Helena Selby
With comments from family doctor Ann Robinson.

(Photo caption: A young man checking his smartphone in bed - credit: Getty Images)

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