Healthy Trucking

Five hours of sleep a night is not enough

Just when I thought I understood how sleep apnea could screw up your body, something else appears and messes up my whole night’s sleep. Recently, I found out that sleep apnea drives an inflammatory process in ones’ body that causes heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The latter, a complex disease that needs to be treated aggressively, can kill you deader than a doornail.
     Now that sleep apnea has been studied widely, we know it is actually depriving you of sleep. Some drivers swear that they sleep a full eight to ten hours, but when tested, they are getting much less. The recommended time for sleep is seven to eight hours minimum.
     Not getting enough sleep causes a substance in the body called leptin to decrease. Leptin is a hormone that is produced by the fat cell. The level of leptin tells the brain that you’re not hungry when it’s high, and it tells the brain that you’re hungry when it’s low.
     So, sleep apnea causes sleep deprivation, which causes leptin levels to fall, and thus your brain thinks that you are hungry, so you eat even though you don’t need the calories.
     One more interesting bit of information I discovered while reading: Loss of sleep (for as little as six days of less than seven hours a day) causes a person to become pre-diabetic. This means that your blood sugar is elevated, thus raising your A1C and damaging tissues even at lower glucose levels.
     So get tested for sleep apnea. Sleep testing will be the drug screen over the next decade, so let’s get proactive. Don’t wait till you lose your ticket.
     Take care, you Kings of the Highway and you Queens of the Interstate.


     Dr. John McElligott is the founder of Professional Drivers Medical Depots (pd-md.com), a planned nationwide network of medical clinics located at truck stops and travel centers.