Results: During the first night (no blood sampling), sleep was similar in both conditions. Under placebo, blood sampling procedure was associated with marked sleep disturbances, which were considerably reduced under progesterone treatment: mean duration of wake after sleep onset was 53% lower, slow-wave sleep duration almost 50% higher, and total slow-wave activity (reflecting duration and intensity of deep sleep) almost 45% higher under progesterone than under placebo (P  0.05). Nocturnal GH secretion was increased, and evening and nocturnal TSH levels were decreased under progesterone (P  0.05).

Conclusions: Progesterone had no effect on undisturbed sleep but restored normal sleep when sleep was disturbed (while currently available hypnotics tend to inhibit deep sleep), acting as a "physiologic" regulator rather than as a hypnotic drug. Use of progesterone might provide novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of sleep disturbances, in particular in aging where sleep is fragmented and of lower quality.

Anne Caufriez, Rachel Leproult, Mireille L'Hermite-Balériaux, Myriam Kerkhofs and Georges Copinschi
Laboratory of Physiology (A.C., M.L.-B., G.C.), Section of Endocrinology of the Centre Hospitalo-Universitaire Saint-Pierre (A.C.), and Sleep Laboratory, Centre Hospitalo-Universitaire de Charleroi, A. Vésale Hospital (M.K.), Université Libre de Bruxelles, B-1070 Brussels, Belgium; and
 

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