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[Michaelangelica]

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Asthma Overdiagnosed in Those Overweight
10.25.06, 12:00 AM ET

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Being overweight increases the odds you'll be misdiagnosed as having asthma when other problems are actually to blame for shortness of breath or wheezing.

That's the conclusion of a new study that was to be presented Monday at the American College of Chest Physicians annual meeting, in Salt Lake City. Researchers found about 60 percent of overweight people diagnosed with asthma actually didn't have the lung disease.

Study author Dr. Chirag Mehta, a pulmonary critical care fellow at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey, explained that people who are overweight or obese can have other conditions that produce symptoms similar to asthma, such as shortness of breath from being out of shape or wheezing from acid reflux disease.

The bottom line, he cautioned other physicians, is that "we should be looking for other diagnoses with a patient with increased BMI." Body mass index (BMI) is a ratio of height to weight.

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/hea...out535647.html

It can. Sleep serves many functions, including rebuilding and repairing tissues (such as muscle, which starts to repair itself in the last 2-4 hours of sleep), producing neurotransmitters, regulating hormones and their cycles, and blood glucose and insulin levels.
I know that when I skip on sleep, I start to crave sweets more than I usually do.

Facinating observation