Why isn't oximetry a sufficient measure of sleep apnea?

[fredkahan]

A new Yorker cartoon shows a cocktail party where one social striver asks the next, "Have you read any good reviews lately?"
I confess I'm one of those and must accept your equanimity, for I assume you have actually read the book!

But as to the lack of expert qualifications of Guzey, I feel his analysis is a forensic not a counterfactual one. If you can't trust Walker to present other people's findings accurately, why should you trust his conclusions?

And it does go beyond gotcha ! 

Guzey accuses Walker of hurting patients and cites sleep specialist's testimony that in obsessing over not meeting Walker's criteria of health inducing sleep, their patients blame themselves, not the theory. More consequential (and new to me) is the harm Guzey claims is incurred by misleading depressed patients who might otherwise respond to deliberate sleep deprivation.  Like, who knew?

Throughout medicine, and biology in general, the best study of man is not man himself, but man in disease .. both natural and deliberately induced. These are the exceptions that prove the rule.

[fredkahan]

A new Yorker cartoon shows a cocktail party where one social striver asks the next, "Have you read any good reviews lately." I confess I'm one of those and must accept your equanimity for I assume you have actually read the book!  But as  to the lack of expert qualifications of Guzey, I feel his analysis is a forensic one not a counterfactual one. If you can't trust Walker to present other people's findings accurately, why should you trust his conclusions?

But it goes beyond gotcha! 
Guzey accuses Walker of hurting patients and cites sleep specialist's testimony that in obsessing over not meeting Walker's criteria of health inducing sleep, their patients blame themselves, not the theory. More consequential (and new to me) is the harm Guzey claims is incurred on depressed patients who might otherwise respond to deliberate sleep deprivation. 

Throughout medicine and biology in general, the best study of man is not man himself, but in disease .. both natural and deliberately mutational. These are the exceptions that prove the rule.

[mesenteria]

I find that few people understand, or are willing to concede the reality of, the hormetic effect.   It works with radiation exposure, disease exposure, sleep deprivation, and intermittent fasting, to name but a few. This in reference to the initial criticism over the hours of sleep and cancers.

I have gotten by with about 5.8 hours of sleep for the past 30 years, and I still don't have to get up to pee at night (I'm 68). I'm seriously behind the 8-ball if I'm supposed to have averaged near 7 hours all this time.