by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

The real question about one recent study may be, did these “volunteers” undergo torture as defined by the Geneva Convention?

Past studies have shown that poor sleep habits weaken your body’s natural immune function.  A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine gets more specific.  In it, researchers directly exposed volunteers to a cold virus to see if sleep made a difference in fighting it off.

In an experiment that I thought only medical students would volunteer to undergo, the participants were quarantined for five days.  They got drops with a high concentration of rhinovirus up their nose and waited for the consequences.

No animals were harmed in this study.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

A new study reiterates common medical knowledge that sleep apnea increases your risk of death. The study in the Journal Sleep monitored 1,522 people, aged 30 to 60, over an 18-year time period and found that the worse the “sleep disordered breathing,” as they call it, the higher the risk. The worst breathers had an increased risk of 3.8 times those with no problems breathing while asleep.

The authors took into consideration age, sex and weights of the participants. Increased risk of cardiovascular-related deaths was a major contributing factor for the increase in death. It did not matter if the participants complained of daytime drowsiness. The causative factor was whether the person was stopping his/her breathing for a few seconds anywhere from five to more that 30 times a minute. This led to a drop in the blood oxygen level.

If sleep apnea is potentially deadly, then how do you know if you have it, and is current treatment effective?

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

I hope you enjoy our video. We have worked long and hard to create and edit this. My managing editor, Leigh Ann Hubbard, and director of photography, Gary Otte, have done most of the work.

After going through the experience myself, I wanted to give people a feeling of what it is really like. I put the test off for a while because I thought I would miss a day’s work before and after and be exhausted due to lack of sleep that night. That just was not the case at all. Sure, there are a lot of wires, but they are bunched up out of the way. It was really worth it for me.

Has anyone else experienced a sleep lab?

Almost as soon as news of actor Heath Ledger’s death broke, came news that sleeping pills were reportedly found in his apartment.

As the rumors swirl, we at James Hubbard’s My Family Doctor want to give you the straight truth about these medications. The purpose is not to speculate on this tragic story–on what may or may not have caused Ledger’s death–but instead to help those of you who are wondering what the truth is about these medications–meds that you or a loved one may be taking. (more…)