March 27, 2019 – Sharon Thomas is usually drained and knows it's because she doesn't get enough sleep. Spending less time in front of screens would help her go to bed earlier, she says, but she wonders if the smartwatch she wants, a brand new bed and a weighted blanket might help her rest higher.But before she buys a product, she reads online reviews, pays attention to the value and appears on the product's return policy, says Thomas.”You always wonder if it's just a fad or if there's scientific evidence that it really works,” says Thomas, a 41-year-old claims adjuster from Houston. “A product may work for someone, but it may not work for me.”Sleep medicine experts can take comfort within the incontrovertible fact that Thomas isn’t taking the product guarantees at face value. For them, the rise of sleep health technology is a double-edged sword. On one hand, they’re grateful that white noise machines, smart beds, devices that claim to trace sleep, and other products have raised awareness of the importance of sleep to overall health. On the opposite hand, they argue, the overwhelming majority of those devices would not have the information to back up their developers' claims. Some worry that folks who use apps or wearables will get false details about their sleep and turn out to be upset a couple of problem they don't have. Michael Grandner, PhD, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program on the University of Arizona College of Medicine, is among the many researchers and clinicians who worry that folks with insomnia, sleep apnea and other sleep disorders will turn to increasingly popular consumer products to treat their condition.“It is difficult to know what a person should do in public [to properly vet products],” says Grandner, who sits on a scientific advisory board for Fitbit, Nightfood and other corporations. “If you feel like you need to rely on these things, know that there are other options.”The business of sleep
The rise of sleep health technology seems to coincide with a rise in studies on sleep and its connection to heart disease, diabetes, dementia and other chronic conditions. Recent research suggests that folks in developed countries just like the United States are usually not sleeping well at night.
According to the CDC, greater than one-third of American adults report getting lower than 7 hours of sleep. CDC data from the past 20 years show that sleep apnea and insomnia have turn out to be common sleep disorders amongst American adults.
It's no surprise, then, that the sleep health industry is big business. In a 2017 report, consulting firm McKinsey & Company estimated that the worldwide sleep health industry is price $30 billion to $40 billion and can proceed to grow at about 8% per 12 months.
This may explain why many sleep specialists are at the hours of darkness about how the devices, apps and other products that customers wish to help them get more and higher sleep work.
Because the technology within the products is taken into account mental property, independent doctors and researchers don't have access to it to judge whether and the way it really works, says Seema Khosla, MD, medical director of the North Dakota Center for Sleep in Fargo. That also makes it difficult to guage whether the information collected by the products is accurate, says Khosla, who treats patients with insomnia, sleep apnea and other disorders.
“We are expected to put our trust in an algorithm we don't understand,” says Khosla, chair of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine's technology committee and lead writer of the academy's statement on sleep technology. “How much can I trust this technology if it's hidden in a black box?”
Goal: To produce products that help to sort out the others
Sam Nicolino is founder and CEO of Adaptive Sound Technologies Inc., a Silicon Valley company that makes sleep sound devices. The electrical engineer says his company has tested its products informally but has not participated in clinical trials because they’re expensive and time-consuming.
“At a certain point, it really doesn’t make sense to go much further unless there’s a big opportunity, unless there’s a reason,” Nicolino says.
But Nicolino says it's been necessary for sleep technology developers to work with sleep specialists to create products that help people sleep — and weed out those who don't. He says he's seen more efforts amongst his colleagues to attach with sleep experts because the company was founded 11 years ago.
As the industry continues to launch recent apps, blankets, aromatherapy products, beds and more, Grandner and Khosla hope it gets a greater handle on the marketing language. “Nobody really knows what they're doing yet,” Grandner says. “We're still figuring it out.”
Khosla says she is going to proceed to pursue recent products as they’re popular along with her patients. But she says everyone should “focus on what makes sense: 'I need to pay more attention to my sleep, I need to follow proper sleep hygiene rules.' It's important that we listen to what our bodies are telling us.”
That's the form of advice Thomas says her primary care doctor would give her. She says she should eat healthier, exercise more, avoid sodas at night and do other things to spend more time in bed and get a great night's sleep.
Maybe her parents were right all along.
“You know parents,” says Thomas. “They encourage me not to stay up so late.”