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We all know what it's like not to be able to sleep.  We get irritable, cranky, and stressed-out.  But research is finding that sleep isn't just something we do at night.  It's something that could kill us, too.   OK, OK, so I'm getting dramatic.  But my husband, who's a dentist, has been branching out into the treatment of sleep apnea, a disorder where you stop breathing up to hundreds of times a night.  In some cases, you can even die. “There is growing awareness of the role of sleep in health, disease and performance,” newswise.com quotes Howard Hindin, D.D.S., co-founder of  The American Academy of Physiological Medicine and Dentistry (AAPMD).  “Upper airway obstruction and resulting sleep disordered breathing can be a factor in heart disease, hypertension, stroke and diabetes in adults, as well as childhood development, learning and behavior. This is especially important for children, who will benefit most.” “There can be serious health...

We've all seen the commercials, the handsome middle-aged man taking his wife's hand and the next shot is of a slowly filling bathtub or, in the old days, a couple smoking side by side on the terrace with smiles on their faces. But medications like Viagra and Cialis are on the air all the time, as are ads for testosterone .  Now, while most men don't really need this hormone, did you know that men with truly low levels may suffer from sleep apnea?  And that sleep apnea can kill? Sleep apnea is a disorder that can happen to anyone but usually affects those who are overweight or obese. What happens is that, when you're sleeping, you stop breathing, as many as hundreds of times a night.  You don't know you're doing this because you're asleep, but it can hurt your heart, even over time cause heart attacks, and it can be a silent killer. According to the the NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to...

So it's true, what we've known all along.   Sleep better, look better.  According to a story at newswise.com, it's not just getting rid of the bags under the eyes (or, in my case, brown puddles), over time it actually has "shown specific improvement in facial appearance after at-home treatment for sleep apnea, a condition marked by snoring and breathing interruptions." Sleep apnea affects millions of adults – most undiagnosed -- and puts them at higher risk for heart-related problems and daytime accidents. Some people stop breathing as many as 120 times an hour. Researchers used a sensitive “face mapping” technique usually used by surgeons, and a panel of independent appearance raters, and they "detected changes in 20 middle-aged apnea patients just a few months after they began using a system called CPAP to help them breathe better during sleep and overcome chronic sleepiness." It stands to reason that if you're getting enough sleep, yo...

Have you had to move to another bedroom because of your spouse's snoring?  It's possible he (or she) has  sleep apnea , a period of not breathing during the night that can happen hundreds of times during the night.   Not only does this not allow the person to get real sleep, it can also kill him. Experts estimate that between 10 and 20% of the population who are middle-aged suffers from sleep apnea, where breathing is briefly interrupted or becomes very shallow during sleep. But here's where the death part comes in. Sleep apnea can lead to serious health problems over time, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and weight gain. And now they're even connecting it to Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Markers for the disease are present 15 to 20 years in people with sleep apnea, before the disease manifests itself, according to newswise.com. You just have to know what you're looking for. Strangely enough, markers for AD were only found in...