UW study responsible for much of what scientists now know about sleep

Sleep apnea ? repeated pauses in breathing during sleep ? is much more common than previously thought. The condition increases the risk of high blood pressure, depression, heart disease, cancer and death. Losing weight and exercising can offset it. People who sleep too little or too much, regardless of whether they have sleep apnea, are more likely to be overweight. Those and other findings about sleep are common knowledge among scientists today thanks to Don Chisholm, Mary Ellen Havel-Lang, Paul Minkus and more than 1,540 other participants in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study.