Texas Institute Of Chest & Sleep Disorders

05/20/2024

More on the risks of va**ng

A significant link between the use of electronic ci******es and earlier age of asthma onset in U.S. adults was reported by UTHealth Houston researchers May 17, 2024 in JAMA Network Open.

08/06/2023

Thanks to the American Doctors Association for their nomination to their 2023 Top 50 Doctors
Always an honor

12/09/2021

Remember the importance of proper mask fitting

02/08/2020

Next and when I get another not on call weekend, I will try to present the current scientific status of AGING.
Normal physiological process or disease?
What are the current and most relevant studies on its causes, is there a true role on prevention, what’s has studied on prevention, is it effective, where are we in human trials, treatment, what’s available.
Can it be reverse?

02/08/2020

So, then HOW MUCH BEAUTY SLEEP WE REALLY NEED”

National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary
Max Hirshkowitz, PhDa,b, Kaitlyn Whiton, MHSc, Steven M. Albert, PhD d, Cathy Alessi, MDe,f, Oliviero Bruni, MDg, Lydia DonCarlos, PhDh, Nancy Hazen, PhDi, John Herman, PhDj, Eliot S. Katz, MDk, Leila Kheirandish-Gozal, MD, MScl, David N. Neubauer, MDm, Anne E. O’Donnell, MDn, Maurice Ohayon, MD, DSc, PhDo, John Peever, PhDp, Robert Rawding, PhDq, Ramesh C. Sachdeva, MD, PhD, JDr, Belinda Setters, MDs, Michael V. Vitiello, PhDt, J. Catesby Ware, PhDu, Paula J. Adams Hillard, MDv

According to this study from the National Sleep foundation, headed by one of my mentors and friend, in Sleep Medicine, Dr Max Hirshkowitz, here are the current recommended total sleep times, straight from the “big wigs”:

“The panel agreed that, for healthy individuals with normal sleep, the appropriate sleep duration for NEWBORNS is between 14 and 17 hours, INFANTS between 12 and 15 hours, TODDLERS between 11 and 14 hours, PRESCHOOLERS between 10 and 13 hours, and SCHOOL-AGE children between 9 and 11 hours. For TEENAGERS, 8 to 10 hours was considered appropriate, 7 to 9 hours for YOUNG ADULTS AND ADULTS, and 7 to 8 hours of sleep for older adults.”

now don’t you try to ask me what age is “older adults” I won’t bite, so better sure than under slept, therefore “stay young” 🤓

02/08/2020

What is the importance of monitoring SLEEP QUANTITY AND QUALITY? (cont)

What’s more, studies show that getting just five hours of sleep each night is linked to health consequences — late-night snacking, weight gain, delayed release of melatonin, and even reduced sensitivity to insulin, the study found.
What’s more, for the “weekend warriors sleepers”

A February 2019 study showed that the idea of trying to “catch up” on sleep over the weekend is yet another myth. Addressing sleep debt has to come from consistently catching enough Z’s, as Inverse has reported. Even if you sleep your Saturday and Sunday away, if you then turn back to sleep-depriving habits during the week, you won’t strike a balance.

02/08/2020

What is the importance of monitoring SLEEP QUANTITY AND QUALITY?

The relationship between sleep and various health outcomes has been extensively studied. Among others, insufficient sleep and poor quality sleep has been linked in several studies to obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, neuro-dedegenarative diseases, insulin resistance, and even premature aging and premature death

02/08/2020

Sleep wearables (cont)

Communications Biology
volume
2, Article number: 361 (2019)

Digital phenotyping by consumer wearables identifies sleep-associated markers of cardiovascular disease risk and biological aging
* Jing Xian Teo, Sonia Davila, […]Weng Khong Lim

“...... In summary, our study has demonstrated various aspects in which sleep metrics from wearables can be used in cohort studies. Apart from comparing wearable-derived and self-reported sleep metrics, our work has shown that wearables can be used to study how sleep relates to demographic, socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, as well as various markers of health and aging. The increasing ubiquity of wearables and other forms of digital health, represent a rich source of behavioral data that can be tapped by investigators running cohort studies. Beyond the use of wearables as study-provided devices, a BYOD (bring your own device) model, where participants share data from their own wearables with investigators through application programming interfaces (APIs), is also possible. This is particularly attractive as the BYOD model allows for much longer tracking durations with minimal incremental cost. At the same time, the use of wearables and other digital health devices in population health studies can catalyze further development of digital applications that promote healthy behavior, including sleep habit.....”

02/08/2020

Sleep wearables (cont)

Communications Biology
volume
2, Article number: 361 (2019)

Digital phenotyping by consumer wearables identifies sleep-associated markers of cardiovascular disease risk and biological aging

* Jing Xian Teo, Sonia Davila, […]Weng Khong Lim
“..... The digital revolution has resulted in the proliferation of consumer wearables with activity tracking functionality. These devices range from relatively simple and low-cost fitness trackers to more sophisticated and multifunctional smartwatches. Beyond physical activity, such devices also track sleep duration and sleep stages, the latter using integrated heart rate (HR) sensors. Although marketed as tools to promote healthy sleep habits, the rapidly growing adoption of consumer wearables suggest their potential as sources of quantitative sleep data for sleep-related biomedical research.
Recent studies have begun exploring the potential of sleep data derived from consumer wearables. First, researchers have compared the accuracy of sleep as measured by consumer wearables from several manufacturers (e.g., Fitbit and Jawbone) with gold standard PSG measurements19,20,21,22. Consumer wearables were found to perform similarly to actigraphs in that they were accurate in detecting sleep but did less well in detecting wake21,23. Some cohort studies have begun using consumer wearables. For example, we recently used Fitbit-derived sleep tracking data to show differences in sleep patterns among volunteers stratified into various activity pattern clusters24. Xu et al. used Fitbit Charge HR sleep data from 748 individuals to demonstrate independent associations between both sleep duration and sleep duration variation with body mass index (BMI)25. Additionally, Turel et al. used Fitbit devices to show a negative association between sleep duration and abdominal obesity26.
Despite these advances, the potential role of sleep metrics from consumer wearables in population health studies remains largely unexplored. First, there has been limited comparison between sleep metrics from consumer wearables and self-reported sleep quality from questionnaires such as the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which is typically used in large cohort studies where it is it impractical and costly to use actigraphy or PSG25,27. This is important if consumer wearables are to replace or augment sleep questionnaires in future cohort studies. Second, the utility of consumer wearables in identifying associations between sleep and health markers is relatively unknown, especially in Asians; a population with considerably different sleep behavior compared to Western cohorts25,28. Health markers of typical interest in population health studies include CVD risk markers such as anthropometrics, blood pressure, lipid profile, and fasting blood glucose (FBG). Telomeres are hexameric repeats that cap chromosome ends and are progressively shortened with successive cell divisions29. Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is thus usually included in cohort studies as a biomarker of aging30. Finally, there has yet to be an exploration of how wearable sleep data correlates with demographic, socioeconomic, and lifestyle factors....”

02/08/2020

Sleep wearables (cont)

Until recently, comercial sleep wearables for public use, had not been evaluated by scientific community, either on their accuracy, the manufacturing company claims or they usefulness.
Consumer wearable devices may be a helpful method of assessing sleep, but validation is required for their use in clinical practice.
I will present some of those studies, and try to give a summary of my opinion and recommendations.

02/08/2020

Sleep wearables (cont)

Since the 1990s, however, actigraphy has increasingly been used to assess sleep/wake behavior. Studies have found actigraphy to be helpful for sleep research because it tends to be less expensive and cumbersome than polysomnography. Unlike polysomnograpphy, actigraphy allows the patient to be movable and to continue her or his normal routines while the required data are being recorded in his or her natural sleep environment; this may render the measured data more generally applicable. As sleep actigraphs are more affordable than polysomnographs, their use has advantages, particularly in the case of large field studies.