Episode 46

Father's Day

Wondering what to get the special man in your life for Father’s Day? Why not the gift of sleep?

In this week’s episode, I review some of the implications of men’s sleep health.

On this Father’s Day, we need to be reminded how intimately linked men’s health is to men’s sleep. Specifically, the ability to become a father in the first place is directly associated with sleep health. 

We’ve seen that sleep and circadian timing, duration, and quality are each associated with risk for resistant low testosterone, erectile dysfunction, sperm count, and sperm quality - even in young men who should otherwise be in their prime. And we’ve seen that correction of sleep issues, including the timing of sleep by re-aligning circadian rhythms is associated with normalization of these struggles. 

And we’ve talked about the enormous problem of sleep disordered breathing. Large population studies have demonstrated remarkable prevalence of this disorder, including a study of thousands of individuals from the general population demonstrating a prevalence of sleep apnea in 83.8% of men between the ages of 35 and 75 years old, including nearly 50% of men in that age group suffering moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea. 

This terrible affliction is associated with higher rates of nearly every disease imaginable, as well as a higher risk for mortality. 

But treatment of sleep apnea in both men and women is highly beneficial. Many studies (and studies of studies called meta-analyses) have established that treating sleep apnea with CPAP resolves erectile dysfunction as effectively as the "little blue pill." 

Effective use of CPAP has also been shown to reduce to the risk of many conditions, including heart disease, stroke, and most importantly death.

So this fathers day, give the special man in your life the gift of sleep, and there’s more than an 80% chance that there’s something threatening his health and wellbeing. 

At sleepeducation.org there’s a "find a facility" function to direct you to the nearest accredited sleep center where you’ll find high quality assessment and treatment options.