Dr Steven Park: Sleep Interrupted Introduction 

Well, today we explore the subject of sleep. And one of the first books that I… Well, it wasn’t the first, but a book that I read over ten years ago was a book called Sleep Interrupted. A physician reveals the number one reason why so many of us are sick and tired, and that is about sleep.

I mean, without a doubt, Sleep is the most important part of the day. It is, I believe, and I’ve said this before, quoting from one of the world’s leading experts, that your sleep is your built-in, I believe, non-negotiable life support system. So, it’s cheap. It’s accessible. It’s profound. It has an impact on every single measure of physical, mental, and emotional health.

Well, my guest today is Dr Steven Park, the author of the book Sleep Interrupted. He’s the author, a speaker, a blogger, and a former surgeon who helps people who are always sick or tired to once again reclaim their health and energy.

Now, Steven’s been in private practise for 13 years and then nine years in academia, so he’s had a balance of both the practical and the academic world, and he’s helped literally thousands of people sleep better. His passion and mission, which certainly resonates with us, is to empower people to overcome their sleep-related breathing problems, which most people don’t realise is the real reason for many common medical ailments.

Now, interestingly, Steven left medicine in 2021. Now he’s based in New York City. And as an ENT specialist, he was at the coalface of those early images from New York City that we saw. And it’s interesting that he was in the ICU wards, and he talks about that in this episode. Now, as I said, he’s a native of New York City. He received his undergraduate degree from John Hopkins University.

The actual that is the epicentre of COVID Tabulation and Research. His medical degree came also from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and his Otolaryngology ENT residency training was completed at Albert Einstein Montefiore Hospital. He’s, as I said, the publisher of that wonderful book Sleep Interrupted. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Dr. Steven Park.

Podcast Transcript

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Unstress. My name is Dr Ron Ehrlich. I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I’m recording this podcast, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders – past, present, and emerging.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:00:20] Well, today we explore the subject of sleep. And one of the first books that I… Well, it wasn’t the first, but a book that I read over ten years ago was a book called Sleep Interrupted. A physician reveals the number one reason why so many of us are sick and tired, and that is about sleep. I mean, without a doubt, Sleep is the most important part of the day. It is, I believe, and I’ve said this before, quoting from one of the world’s leading experts, that your sleep is your built-in, I believe, non-negotiable life support system. So, it’s cheap. It’s accessible. It’s profound. It has an impact on every single measure of physical, mental, and emotional health.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:01:07] Well, my guest today is Dr Steven Park, the author of the book Sleep Interrupted. He’s the author, a speaker, a blogger, and a former surgeon who helps people who are always sick or tired to once again reclaim their health and energy.

Now, Steven’s been in private practise for 13 years and then nine years in academia, so he’s had a balance of both the practical and the academic world, and he’s helped literally thousands of people sleep better. His passion and mission, which certainly resonates with us, is to empower people to overcome their sleep-related breathing problems, which most people don’t realise is the real reason for many common medical ailments.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:01:52] Now, interestingly, Steven left medicine in 2021. Now he’s based in New York City. And as an ENT specialist, he was at the coalface of those early images from New York City that we saw. And it’s interesting that he was in the ICU wards, and he talks about that in this episode. Now, as I said, he’s a native of New York City. He received his undergraduate degree from John Hopkins University.

The actual that is the epicentre of COVID Tabulation and Research. His medical degree came also from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and his Otolaryngology ENT residency training was completed at Albert Einstein Montefiore Hospital. He’s, as I said, the publisher of that wonderful book Sleep Interrupted. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Dr. Steven Park. Welcome to the show, Steven.

Dr Steven Park: [00:02:59] Thanks for inviting me, Ron.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:03:02] Steven, I knew about your work when I first read your book over ten years ago, Sleep Interrupted, and the title of the book says so much. A physician reveals the number one reason why so many of us are sick and tired and includes all sorts of solutions to all sorts of problems. I wondered if we might just stop. And I don’t think we can be reminded of this often enough. What defines a consistently good night’s sleep, and why does that matter?

Dr Steven Park: [00:03:29] Well, there’s been tons of research on the importance of a good night’s sleep, but ultimately it’s not what happens at night, but how you feel and function during the daytime. So for example, if you go to a sleep doctor complaining about sleeping, they’re not going to give you a diagnosis of insomnia unless you’re having daytime problems functioning.

So in the same way, you know, people have different stages in life where, you know, for example, a woman, you have a child, you’re not going to sleep well. But we all make do we get by and accommodate. So it’s a very wide-open question. Ultimately it’s how much it affect your quality of life, and your functioning, your ability to work, interact and enjoy life in general.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:04:13] Mm hmm. But yet, so much can go. I mean, people accept that the way they sleep is just the way it is. And this is why it’s always been. I mean, quite a lot can go wrong, can it?

Dr Steven Park: [00:04:27] Absolutely. So you’re absolutely right. A lot of people never know whether a good night’s sleep is. So they think it’s normal, and then they ask around. And other people have similar issues, too, and it’s actually normal. And people are proud of the fact that they can get by on 5 hours of sleep when we know that that causes problems. They just don’t know it.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:04:48] Hmm. I think that I’ve always felt that the people who are sleeping three, four or 5 hours know that they’re not getting enough sleep. But it’s the group that sleeps 6 hours or five or 6 hours and thinks they are getting enough sleep are the most interesting ones because they’re kind of under this delusion, aren’t they?

Dr Steven Park: [00:05:08] Absolutely. And if you question them enough, you’ll find that they compensate in various different ways. Either they’re exercise maniacs, whether they drink a lot of coffee, or did you say something to cause them to be stimulated. And so they subconsciously compensate for the fact that they’re not sleeping well, and they don’t realise what it’s like to think clearly and to not overreact to certain situations, to be calm and relaxed, and to just… They don’t know what normal is because they’ve never felt it.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:05:43] What are some of the questions that alert people to the fact that they actually do have a sleep problem?

Dr Steven Park: [00:05:52] Well, the end stage is, for example, if you have sleep apnoea, then you have consequences of sleep apnoea, for example, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and car accidents. But when you’re in the very early stages of a sleep problem, it manifests as, for example, fatigue is not you just don’t have the energy that you used to have or you can’t think as clearly as you normally would.

You know, ten, 20 years ago, what were you five years ago? Some people will wake up once or twice at night to go to the bathroom. That’s a sure sign of a sleep-breathing problem. So it manifests in very different ways. In children, it can be behaviour problems, for example, ADHD-type symptoms. And then as you get more and more severe in the manifest as medical problems like seizures or headaches or digestive issues.

So it can manifest in so many different ways. Well, let’s use it to ask about sleep problems. The doctors generally don’t ask about it. So they’ll give you a different diagnosis. And then that allows them to give you a medication for it, which is unfortunate.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:06:57] I mean, you’ve been a sleep physician. You’ve been in academia. You’ve been in practise, and you are obviously focussed on sleep. Can you just share with us a little bit about your own journey? Like how did you reach that point? You’ve been in both practise and academia. I think that’s a really interesting balance.

Dr Steven Park: [00:07:17] Hmm. Sure. Well, I started off as an otolaryngologist or an ENT surgeon, and I think it’s just fate that I stumbled upon sleep medicine because all my life I’ve been a terrible sleeper. I never woke up refreshed. I always fell asleep in lectures. It’s amazing I made it through medical school in college.

Fortunately, I went into a speciality where I was running around all day long, were staying up all night, so I had to be alert. But then, as I went into ENT and became an ENT surgeon, I did all the general ENT procedures – sinus surgery, ear surgery, and neck surgery. I came across a lot of patients, for example, who had sinus problems and recurrent sinus infections. And I noticed that every one of them snored and they didn’t sleep well.

So this is, and I talk about this in my book, Sleep Interrupted, I ordered sleep studies, and 80% were found to have sleep apnoea, significant sleep apnoea. And then, when I treated them with CPAP, the sinus problems went away. Not only did they sleep better, but the sinus problems went away. So that kind of opened my eyes as to this connection between sleep and medical problems. And then there’s a whole series of other events that kind of added on to this to give me my eureka moment that allowed me to write my book.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:08:37] Mm hmm. I’m intrigued by how few doctors do actually focus on this issue of sleep. And I come always back to it having to be a personal experience. You know, your own. You mentioned a eureka moment. I mean, it was a similar story for me. I’ve been snoring through my late thirties and early forties and always dismissed it as my wife’s problems, not mine, until she threatened to kick me out of the bedroom.

And I took it seriously. And then I realised, wow, and I did take it seriously. There’s a big difference between just sleeping and sleeping well and the fact you can do something about it. Do you think doctors have to have that personal eureka moment to really include that in their patient assessment system?

Dr Steven Park: [00:09:28] You’re absolutely right. Unfortunately, even the doctors are in this fog of days all day long because most doctors that I know don’t sleep well either, because they simplify because of the practising medicine, especially as you get older, they’re going to be on medications. High blood pressure medications, diabetes medications, medications for depression or anxiety.

So they’re in the same boat that we patients are. And all along with just the way medicine is happening, you don’t have enough time to talk to your patients and get to know them. Their lifestyles, stresses, their habits. And so sleep is actually the lowest priority. The sad thing about sleep is that they just study looking at doctors and how they’re interacting with patients.

If a woman complained about sleep problems, you’ll give them a diagnosis of insomnia. So if you give them sleep medication. But if a man couple of a sleep problem, they got diagnosed with sleep apnoea, they got treated for it.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:10:22] Interesting. Well, I think the other ones you mentioned are depression and anxiety. It amazes me how often people are on anti-depressants. And we did a programme on this, and 95% of prescriptions for antidepressants in Australia at least are written by general practitioners on a very short time frame appointment of probably 15 minutes at the most sometimes. And no one ever asked them about sleep.

Dr Steven Park: [00:10:52] Right.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:10:53] There on this medication. No one ever asked about sleep.

Dr Steven Park: [00:10:56] I’m not surprised. It’s the same thing in America. The other problem, of the other things that I saw over the past couple of years, is that these medications. If you look at the objective data, it doesn’t do very much. Just like most prescription medications, the effect is very small. But the problem is that you’re going to have lots of complications. And the biggest complication that I saw with these medications, whether it’s an anti-depressant, blood pressure medication, diabetes medications, or any of these medications, is weight gain.

And it’s shocking how often you saw that with these antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications. And even CPAP has a certain degree of weight gain, too, which is shocking. But mostly doctors kind of deny that. And what the patients tell me is that when they complain about weight gain after being on these medications, the doctors completely dismiss them.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:11:52] Yes. Well, this is, you know, the power of pharmaceutical intervention is almost a religious experience for many medical practitioners. You mentioned obstructive sleep apnoea. Let’s just talk about that. Tell us a little bit about… give us Obstructive Sleep Apnoea 101.

Dr Steven Park: [00:12:11] Okay. So the textbook definition is the stereotypical middle-aged, overweight, snoring man with a big neck. So that’s the general picture, a slide that gets put up in the lectures with the sleep apnoea lectures. The problem is that while that may be true, there are two issues. Number one, most doctors don’t even ask about sleep apnoea because they’re more focussed on lowering blood pressure.

And then number two is that now we’ve shown that you don’t have to be that’s your typical profile. You can be a young, thin woman that doesn’t snore and still have significant significant sleep apnoea. It’s just that women present differently than men. And especially for women after menopause, that’s when they catch up to men with their sleep apnoea diagnoses.

But again, doctors don’t consider sleep apnoea in women as much as with men. Although it’s changing a little bit because sleep studies are much more available these days. But again, because doctors don’t have the time to ask about these issues, it never gets brought up or treated because it’s easier to give them a pill.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:13:19] Now, these sleep studies, one of the things that have often intrigued me, Steven, in these sleep studies, and I’ve had them done myself with my bands around my chest and my electrodes put on my jaw and my head and my chest and all of this. I mean, I get uncomfortable if I wear a watch to bed.

I never do that. I take my rings off, you know, my wedding ring comes off at night, you know, and yet how do you, as the sleep physician, justify the accuracy of the sleep study when there’s so much hardware on? Are we really getting an accurate description of a person’s sleep?

Dr Steven Park: [00:14:00] That’s a very important point. I’m the same way. I just don’t like anything on my body when I sleep. And when you’re sleeping, even though you’re sleeping, your brain can sense sounds and movements. And so if you’re a light sleeper, you’re going to sense all that subconsciously.

And so that’s a very valid point that when you do a study with all these monitors on you, it’s going to interrupt sleep. That concept where it is Schrodinger’s formula or something? If you observe something, you’ve changed the outcome. So with a sleep study, you’re going to change the outcome no matter what you do.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:14:37] Hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:14:38] And so that when the good things that have happened is that because of the advent of home sleep studies, that’s the first line type of security order for most standard sleep apnoea patients. And it’s much more convenient, although it has some downsides. Like for example, if the heat comes off, then you have to repeat the test all over again.

But for the most part, it’s been shown to be just as valid as in lab study with so much less wires and bothersome equipment. And so, but even then, some people, just for example, I have to tell you a story. Many years ago, when I went to a sleep conference, I tested out a new home sleep study at the conference centre. So I took it home. I tried it out with a nasal cannula. I could not sleep at all. And the reason is that the cannulas blocked my nose.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:15:31] Yes.

Dr Steven Park: [00:15:33] So if that’s happening to me, it’s going to happen to other people, too.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:15:36] Mm hmm. See, I think it’s so good to be a patient, isn’t it? To remind ourselves of what we’re asking our patients to do. Snoring is another one that people and I mentioned to you that I just dismiss. Snoring, should we take that more seriously?

Dr Steven Park: [00:15:53] Yes. Snoring is not normal. People joke about it. They laugh about it whenever you mention snoring. But it means that you’re not breathing, and you’re probably choking at night, and it’s going to cause other medical problems later on. And I think if you look at the Guinness Book of World Records, that record is something like 80 or 90 decibels. And there was one unofficial record like over 100 decibels, which is louder and louder and more…

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:16:20] Wow.

Dr Steven Park: [00:16:21] And it’s funny the case report, the man that had the world record, his wife was deaf in that one year.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:16:28] Right. Cause or effect, you know, like. Yeah.

Dr Steven Park: [00:16:34] Yeah. Well, there’s. Yeah. Go ahead.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:16:37] No, no, no. Go.

Dr Steven Park: [00:16:39] Yeah. So on. But even if you don’t know, you can still have a severe sleep problem, too.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:16:44] I mean, the snoring is. Is an indicator of blocking of airways, isn’t it? So, I mean, that in itself is not normal. But there are these apps that have just been introduced here recently, one called Snore Lab, I think, which records even if a pin dropped in the bedroom, you would pick that up. And so it’s rather I’m just about to explore it myself. Have you had any experience with these kinds of apps that monitor that kind of thing?

Dr Steven Park: [00:17:18] These kinds of apps have been around for a long time. For example, like 20 years ago when I first started, there was a home sleep test called Snap. I think they changed the technology but basically, it measures your breathing and snoring and uses an algorithm that creates an apnoea score. So like a sleep study.

So it’s not your standard sleep test and now they changed the technology. So it’s more in line with standard techniques. But there are these programmes where, for example, they look at the breathing patterns and the snoring patterns, and just using a very complex algorithm, you can determine how many times you stop breathing at night.

And so the problem with snoring apps is that it tells you your story a lot, but it’s not calculating when you’re not breathing. So if you’re not breathing, you’re not snoring. So if you have severe sleep apnoea, you’re not going to snore most of the time because you’re not breathing.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:18:15] Wow. Yeah. Because I know they measure it according to whether you stop breathing or have restricted breathing for more than 10 seconds. I mean, the word apnoea is meaning stopping breathing. I mean, what’s the longest recorded pause in breathing that you’ve seen clinically? I mean, it’s more than 10 seconds, isn’t it?

Dr Steven Park: [00:18:40] No. So typically, it’s going to be in the 20-40 seconds range, and sometimes it goes up to 50 or 60 seconds. That’s when you have really low oxygen levels. You know, if you go more than 4 minutes and we know you’re going to die, right?

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:18:55] Right. Yeah.

Dr Steven Park: [00:18:56] Yeah. Actually, the 10-seond threshold, that’s a big problem. And I mentioned this a lot in my podcast, in my interviews, that that 10 seconds threshold was an arbitrary number that was developed by Dr Guilleminault. Dr Christian Huilleminault. He coined the term sleep apnoea along with Dr Dement. And the running joke was that it’s because he had ten fingers. He just picked a random number. So I asked him personally, “Why do you pick 10 seconds?”

And he said, “Well, that’s when you start to see some physiologic changes, whether it’s oxygen levels or arousals.” Which kind of make sense, but still an arbitrary number. But the problem with that 10 seconds threshold is that if you’re a thin young woman and you stop breathing 25 times an hour for 9 seconds, you don’t have sleep apnoea. And this is a much I think this is a much bigger proportion of people than sleep apnoea. This condition is called Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome or UARS.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:19:58] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:19:59] The dentist actually picked this up a lot more because they see this small airway and then the crowding. But most of these people in the medical field get put on antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications because they’re not sleeping.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:20:14] Yeah, that is interesting because I mean, one of the observations that I’ve made many times is that see, you know, we’ve evolved to have 32 teeth in our mouth. And yes, less than 5%. I mean I don’t even think 5% of the population would have enough room in our modern western world on a western diet and lifestyle. We have crowded teeth and narrow jaws and of course, from an ENT perspective, that’s quite significant, isn’t it?

Dr Steven Park: [00:20:49] Absolutely. And this is why my main passion and focus is the crowding of our airways. And that’s what my book has been about, that over the past couple of decades, especially the past hundred years, modern human jaws are shrinking. And you mentioned a soft diet, modern Western diets, and you probably are familiar with Dr Weston Price. Absolutely.

And he describes those communities that are natively off the land have wide jaws, perfect teeth, and no cavities. Those kinds of cultures have disappeared essentially because they’ve evolved and infiltrated modern diets. But I’ve added a number of different additional reasons for dental crowding besides soft diets. And I think you agree with me on bottle feeding is one.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:21:33] Yeah.

Dr Steven Park: [00:21:34] Thumb sucking, pacifier use, mouth breathing due to nasal congestion. But I’m going to add a couple more different things. This new concept bit controversial, but I could argue that even fluoride can narrow the jaws too, because it hardens teeth and hardens bones prematurely. And that’s been shown in some animal models, too.

You also have lots of toxins and chemicals that have been shown to prevent proper bone and cartilage development. It’s a whole list of toxins that are out there. And prematurity is another factor because they’ve shown that premature babies have a high risk of sleep apnoea because the jaws don’t have enough time to develop inside the mother’s womb.

And so there are a lot of different factors that contribute to our faces shrinking. We actually did a study which hasn’t been published yet, but we analysed 14,000 college yearbooks from the 1930s to now, and we did a width-to-height analysis and weight ratio analysis. We found that modern faces are much more narrow and taller.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:22:41] Wow, yeah, that’s right. So you took the… You looked at just the photographs of all the students that had passed through from the 1930s to now.

Dr Steven Park: [00:22:51] Right. We use a computer algorithm to calculate the height to width…

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:22:55] What a great resource to go back and study retrospectively.

Dr Steven Park: [00:23:00] Well, you can find it. You can see it for yourself. Just look up a random yearbook from 1930. You’ll see they have much wider faces. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:23:07] Yeah. Incredible. And but it’s interesting that this area, and this is part of the problem, I think, with oral health and the implications is it’s almost like the black hole of medicine, you know, like dentists are so focussed on this area, and the minutiae of what they’re doing and the medical profession know very little about it.

If someone’s not in pain, tick that box as far as oral health is concerned. But it’s such an important thing. I mean, for you and your background as an ENT, you would have been dealing with those issues all the time. I mean, a deviated septum is a good example, isn’t it? Yeah, I mean, a deviated septum is common.

Dr Steven Park: [00:23:51] Right. And so, the most common explanation for why people get deviated nasal symptoms is trauma. And that’s what I was taught. But, for example, babies coming out of the birth canal are thought to crush the nose. But we know now that even C-section babies have deviated septum. And it’s interesting. When I first started practising over 20 years ago, I think I saw kids, too.

But I didn’t see that many deviated septums in children and teenagers. But 20 years later, I saw a lot more deviated septums along with the narrowing of the jaws. So what happens is that the deviated septum sits on the floor of the nose, which is the roof of your mouth. And as the jaws get more narrow, the palate doesn’t descend.

And so if the pilot doesn’t descend the septum as it grows, it just buckles to one side. And the nasal cavities narrower, too, because it follows the molars. So it’s a structural anatomic problem, not just this dimension, but this dimension, too.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:24:57] Yeah. Yeah. Yes. It’s well, with that statistic of less… This is unofficial. I’ll have to look up the data, but my own observation of less than 5% would indicate that 95% of the population has a narrow upper airway as a result. And this is partly the explanation for why so many people have sleep problems.

Dr Steven Park: [00:25:27] Right. And I think I’ve heard somewhere that the dentists were saying that 100 years ago most people didn’t need their wisdom teeth taken out. Hmm. Is that. Yeah, if it’s showing up, I believe it. Yeah. Oh, another important thing about dental crowding is there’s a really interesting book I read called Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:25:47] Okay.

Dr Steven Park: [00:25:48] And there’s one chapter she talks about Malocclusion. Really interesting chapter.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:25:54] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:25:54] And she cites this author and anthropologist and scientist named [Inaudible 00:26:18]. And he studied these teeth from skulls from this ancient England and China. And what they found was that, for example, when the British adopted metallic cutting tools, so they had a knife that was available, that’s when they start to get an overbite before they edge bites. And then when they was cutting out me to take an overbite. So the rich people had the overbite first and the peasants had still you. The same thing they saw in China, too.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:26:37] And the reason for that being?

Dr Steven Park: [00:26:39] Because the meat was cut up before they were served.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:26:43] Right. Rather than chewing. So this adds another dimension about. About the importance of chewing force on jaw development. And I know we spoke to Professor Paul Erlich, my own name, and I couldn’t resist talking to him who wrote this book, Jaws: The Story of a Silent Epidemic.

Dr Steven Park: [00:27:03] Yeah, I read that.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:27:04] I thought it was amazing that a world-famous environmental biologist at the age of 85 is still in practise, still teaching at Stanford and all of this. Writes a book on development.

Dr Steven Park: [00:27:17] Yeah, and you’re right. This is something that no one is mentioning in mainstream medicine, and most. The good thing is that dentist I think I’ve taken the lead on this, is still a small number but definitely expanding exponentially. But it’s a struggle because you’re going against mainstream dentistry medicine.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:27:37] Yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting, isn’t it? Now, I know another thing that you are you’ve written on recently. In fact, you know, on your website, you talk about unstuffing a stuffy nose, and you know, talk to us about that. Talk to us about some of the ways of unstuffing a stuffy nose.

Dr Steven Park: [00:27:58] So, as an ENT, that’s my main bread and butter. I did a lot of nasal surgeries before they I have tons of nasal allergy medications, and the same pattern happening over and over again. The problem was that long-term, it wasn’t that satisfying. Medications helped temporarily.

And then these people need a surgery. And a lot of people most of the people did very well the surgery, but they still had they could breathe below the nose, but they still had their other symptoms like fatigue and brain fog, anxiety, depression. So what I realised was that I wasn’t addressing the other areas of the upper airway I was just addressing the nose.

Dr Steven Park: [00:28:35] Breathing to your nose is so critical for all the other treatments to work properly. For example, if you’re going to use a CPAP machine or a mouth guard, you have to have an open nose for it to work properly. So that was my main priority: To optimise their breathing.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:28:51] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:28:52] But one thing that I realised wasn’t being addressed that commonly was people were focussing on the septum only mostly. And then the turbinates, these wings on the side that swell up when you have a cold or allergy, they were treated with medications or just conservative surgery. But the one area that people were not addressing is the nostrils.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:29:15] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:29:15] So that’s why people sometimes get this wow experience when they use breathe-away strips, but not consistently. And so ENT still doesn’t address the nostrils that often. Now, there are certain conservative procedures you can do that are out now, but it’s not covered by insurance. So if it’s not covered by insurance, it’s not going to be widely accepted.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:29:35] Right.

Dr Steven Park: [00:29:36] Right. Unless you do cosmetic surgery. But that’s a totally different ballpark.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:29:41] So what do you suggest? What surgery on the nostrils?

Dr Steven Park: [00:29:46] So there are different degrees of operations you can do. The traditional operation is the open rhinoplasty approach. So I started doing that many years ago. If you peel the skin of the nose very little bit gross. But then they take cartilage from your ear and put two strips here. You just got band grafts.

And so it’s different in the nostrils. So that’s your standard classical rhinoplasty approach to similar nostrils for what’s currently low valve collapse, nasal valve collapse. And then, maybe about ten years ago, I started doing a suspension suture where make a little incision under the eye on the bone popping. A tiny little screw that’s attached to a suture told me that under the skin grabbed a nostril lift-up, look-up, suspension.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:30:30] Wow.

Dr Steven Park: [00:30:31] And then the last five years, before I stopped practising, I was doing a cartilage overlap procedure, so this crease right here is the junction between the upper lateral and lower lateral cartilage. So that’s what caves in when you breathe. Then I make a cut on the inside and peel the cartilage of the skin, top, and bottom, and they overlap the cartilage about three millimetres.

So the heel stiffens the nostrils. So I was getting very good results with that very minimal procedure. Takes about 5 to 10 minutes. No major changes on the outside. So that was my go-to operation for people who had mild to moderate nasal valve collapse.

If they had really severe collapse and then needed more aggressive surgery. So. So that’s something that really took my successes to a different level because once you open up the nose more differently, everything else works much better.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:31:26] Mm hmm. But you also, and I mean, I guess, you know, you’re a surgeon. Your background is in surgery, so solutions come via surgery. But I know you also talk about mouth tape, which paradoxically opens up the nose as well, doesn’t it?

Dr Steven Park: [00:31:44] And so this one concept that, as they point out, that’s really, really important. People think that if you’re breathing at night and you’re snoring, if you open your mouth that you can breathe better. But that’s also when you snore more when you open your mouth. And the reason is that when you open your mouth, you don’t open the airway, but you close the airway more.

And the reason is that when you open the jaw, the tongue goes backward. And whenever I did what’s called sleep endoscopy, so I would have a patient under anaesthesia, I take a look with a camera. I can see clearly that if you open your mouth even just a little bit, the tongue based or the advertised flaps back significantly. They’ve seen this in 20 years ago. They had studies showing that the airway does narrow.

There’s more resistance when you open the mouth. And this is the anatomic reason the tongue goes back more. So that’s why I really have to focus an emphasis on keeping the mouth closed, and so it mouth taping has been around for a long time, but it’s more popular these days. And mostly your tape are like this, but I recommend taping this way.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:32:45] Vertically. So you were pointing. Most people tape horizontally, but you go vertically. Why do you say that?

Dr Steven Park: [00:32:53] And the reason is, if you keep your lips closed this way, you can still open your mouth. A lot. Right? Okay. So if you tape vertically, not just here, stop here but go under the chin to suspend lower jaw closed. So it’s not perfect, but it’s much better than going this way. So you can suspend your lower jaw closed.

Now, another way to do it is to use a chinstrap like for CPAP when you enter something chin straps. The problem is that these chin straps are elastic, so you can still open your mouth a lot. And if you tie in too much sense. Uncomfortable.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:33:25] Hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:33:26] Okay. So. But if you’re going to tape your mouth to your lips, you have to first make sure you can breathe with your nose. Hmm. So typically, out patients to try breathe Whitestrips or these other internal nasal dilator devices that are twenty different options out there. Hmm. If they want a real wow experience, I haven’t used Afrin is a decongestant spray temporarily. Just for one or two nights over the counter. Along with the breathe Whitestrips. And then, on the third night, I use a tape. In that order.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:33:56] Hmm. Another area I know you I can see focussed on to sleep position and talk to us a little bit about what the problems are with some and what the preferred ways to sleep, what the position is.

Dr Steven Park: [00:34:10] So the most common question is, what’s the best position to sleep? And if you look at the old-time pictures, most people or severe on their backs. Right. And they open their mouth, and you get a cosy sleeping, restoring sign. But most modern people can’t sleep on their backs anymore because their airways are more narrow.

And so, for example, a lot of them tend to store it. Just about once a month. I would see a middle-aged woman with recurrent sinus infections and headaches, and migraines, and she would be put on multiple antibiotics. And I would see her because of the coincidence problems, and she would demand more antibiotics.

Dr Steven Park: [00:34:50] And I examined her, and I see that she has a very narrow oral cavity, deviated septum, typical classic narrow airways, and ask, “Would you sleep on the backside of your stomach?” And she’s said, “I sleep on my back.” I don’t believe her. She physically cannot breathe properly on her back.

And I ask her, “Well, when you were younger, I just sleep on my stomach. When did you change?” About seven, or eight weeks ago. And when these infections start seven, eight weeks ago, because her doctor, her dermatologist, said, “Don’t sleep on your stomach because it causes facial wrinkles.”.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:35:21] Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Steven Park: [00:35:23] So chiropractors do the same thing, and I think they’re right in that for spinal alignment, it’s ideal to sleep on your back, but. But breathing is more important. So anything that prevents you from sleeping when on your side is going to cause problems. For example, if you’re a lifetime stomach sleeper and you undergo hip surgery, and now you fall asleep on your back in the hospital.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:35:47] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:35:48] Right. And they give you narcotics for pain. What’s going to happen then? More apnoeas, more pneumonia, more complications.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:35:56] So, given our narrowed jaws and given the problems with stomach sleeping from a structural perspective, I’m guessing the side is our preferred modern way.

Dr Steven Park: [00:36:10] Right. Whatever is most comfortable. Some people can only sleep on their stomachs. Some people can only sleep on their sides until they have a problem, such as a shoulder injury or surgery. And that’s going to… If they can’t see properly on the other side, then they’re going go to their backs. And that’s why people will have more health problems after some kind of injury that prevents optimal sleep position.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:36:32] Now, Steven, you know, we’ve been through a very interesting, reflective two years with the pandemic globally. I’m just interested to hear your perception of how this has been managed, taking a step back from your role as a sleep physician but just as a practising specialist and an academic in medicine. How do you reflect on it?

Dr Steven Park: [00:36:57] Well, let me just start off by saying that as a result of what’s happened in the past two years, I quit practising medicine six months ago.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:37:04] Wow. Yeah. That is a huge move for somebody that’s dedicated their life to the study and practise of medicine. Why?

Dr Steven Park: [00:37:12] Well, there are a number of different reasons. It just kind of stacked up over the past five or ten years, and the whole pandemic just kind of aggravated everything. I just couldn’t be a part of a system that just focuses on medications, and just see, I mean, that’s a whole other discussion in itself and how was handled. But it just kind of the system kind of revealed its true nature in my mind.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:37:38] Yeah.

Dr Steven Park: [00:37:39] And let me give you one example. Early in the pandemic, I knew that Vitamin D was helpful in treating coronavirus infections. I mean, there are some studies, many studies showing that for past pandemics. So I wanted to do a study on this. So I applied for IUV approval, and they denied it, giving me no reason.

And then other researchers are saying the same thing, that there’s this resistance towards natural therapies for infections and to so much antagonism with, you know, inexpensive or over-the-counter medications or regimens. It gets demonised if you even suggest that it can help even a little bit. And so that’s one factor. And also, I think that…

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:38:24] You’re in a safe space, Steven, because this is music to my… I mean, I agree with you 100%, but I’m intrigued about your perceptions.

Dr Steven Park: [00:38:35] And I thought I could do a lot more by spending full time doing this kind of activity. I started doing YouTube videos now. Another thing is, I was actually focussing on Facebook to get my message out, and my account got hacked, and I got suspended. And they’re saying that I had inappropriate material, pornographic material. And I couldn’t find what that material was, and they couldn’t tell me what the content was.

So take about four months for me to resolve that issue. And as I was about to start the account again, it got hacked again. And so I’ve been hearing that other people in similar fields like us are being blocked. Because of our content. You’re saying about mainstream, about these ideas that go against mainstream medicine. I can’t prove it but that’s my thinking. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:39:39] Yes. Well, it’s interesting to hear you say about vitamin D. I actually was President of the Australasian College of Nutritional Environmental Medicine at the time. Together with the past President, we wrote letters to the government and all the regulatory bodies suggesting that the very least we should do to minimise harm to vulnerable people, particularly in aged care but generally in the population, was prescribe vitamin D and zinc, which has been shown to be a powerful antiviral approach.

And we received letters back saying. Thank you for your letter, but there’s no evidence to support that. And then we saw very quickly patented drugs that the research of which came from the companies that produce them being accepted. Just almost blindly accepting.

Dr Steven Park: [00:40:34] Right. Right. And then, knowing all of this. I start doing research on just, I guess, the underbelly of our fields, and it’s very disturbing. And this actually led me into other areas besides ENT and sleep, for example, nutrition. So one thing I did early this year is to offer an online course called the 90-day sleep diet.

Losing weight naturally without counting calories or cardio. And in the process of preparing for this, I learnt so much that I can’t believe I just didn’t know about these things, about nutrition, which is something that doctors are not taught at all.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:41:22] Hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:41:24] And for example, one simple thing is this whole vilification of cholesterol, which is based on really 40 studies from the seventies, and then the food industry kind of caught on to it and just promoted this overabundance of carbohydrates and grains, and then they kind of vilify cholesterol, and then the medication and a class of medications are basically useless to prevent heart disease.

But you know, they kind of fiddling with the numbers to get the approval. But it’s the same pattern over and over again with every medication, including the coronavirus vaccine. There’s a similar relative risk reduction, which is very tiny as an absolute risk reduction.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:42:09] Yeah. Now, it’s that fiddling with those figures, isn’t it, that is the difference between relative risk and absolute risk. And you drew the analogy. You talk about statins, and I’ve covered that in my own book. And it’s interesting. The advertisement for Lipitor statin is that it will reduce the risk of heart disease by 36%, which is a relative risk, which sounds very impressive.

I guess most doctors would say, well, I’d be negligent if I didn’t do that. But then, when you look at it, actually, the risk of getting a heart problem was three in 100. And by taking Lipitor, it changed it to two in a hundred, and that was a 36% change. So that was. So if you put it in absolute terms, it’s a lot less impressive, but it’s a very good marketing tool, isn’t it?

Dr Steven Park: [00:43:05] And with the COVID vaccine, you had similar numbers, similar ratios.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:43:09] Yeah. Because this 95% reduction in whatever, that’s a relative risk. But your risk, I mean, I think the risk of dying of COVID, you know, I’m sure you have these conversations with people who are avid supporters of vaccinations. So ask them what do you think your risk of dying of COVID is.

And they would go on like five or 10% risk of… No. It’s actually 0.04% risk of dying. Which means that you are 99.96%, you will not. You know, the likelihood of you dying, not dying, is 99.96%. So, you know, I mean, it’s just it’s been a shock to me. I’ve been aware of the role of the chemical, food, and pharmaceutical industries for many, many years, but even I am shocked by the corporate capture, if you like, of everything.

Dr Steven Park: [00:44:16] Right. The brazenness of corporations. Yeah, it’s. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:44:21] And this is something that many others in the medical field have become aware of. I mean, you may have peripherally been aware of it before, but now you’re very aware of it to the point that you stopped practising medicine.

Dr Steven Park: [00:44:37] Yeah. I mean, there’s another issue that kind of tipped me over the edge. Two issues. Number one, I don’t know how much you know about certain states in the U.S. where the governors put infected COVID patients back into nursing homes. It has cause a massive death rate as a result.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:45:01] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:45:02] When they had other available facilities that they didn’t use, especially in New York. Wow. And that’s just kind of being swept under the rug right now, even though they’re saying that that was a travesty and that they did something wrong. So it’s very political, and it gets into a very conspiratorial territory, too. But it’s very disturbing. When I heard that was happening, I was like, “What? What are they doing?”

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:45:29] Because you’re based in New York, aren’t you?

Dr Steven Park: [00:45:30] Yeah, right. I was working at my hospital during the peak in New York City. I was in ICU working there for two weeks. It was pretty rough.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:45:43] We saw images of it. We saw images of it. And it looked very disturbing. And New York was kind of seen as the epicentre, wasn’t it, in America?

Dr Steven Park: [00:45:53] Yeah. But there were other issues that cropped up, for example, how the media just kind of overplayed the severity. But the long lines for testing for hospitals, when in fact there were no long lines. So there’s a lot of different things that kind of came together. It just didn’t click for me. There’s some sort of some kind of mismatch or, I guess cognitive dissonance.

Dr Steven Park: [00:46:24] So, I mean, this is not just one thing, but a lot of different things over the years. And then the coverage is kind of tipping you over the edge too much, stepping over the edge and then with the vaccine mandate. That’s what actually led me to resign.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:46:44] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:46:44] Knowing what I know about the vaccine. Also, I have a lot of patients who had serious side effects from the vaccine, and they mentioned to the doctor that doctors just wiggle them off. I’ve seen what can happen.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:46:55] Yes. Now, I saw a patient yesterday, a 49-year-old woman who got pericarditis after the first Pfizer shot. Had a lot of trouble getting a doctor to acknowledge that it was connected to the Pfizer shot taken her. She had no history, either personal or family history of heart disease. And it’s taken her a year to recover from this, and still suffering from it.

Dr Steven Park: [00:47:25] You know, I can imagine that you’re ever going to recover from pericarditis. Actually, another interesting study that I read very early in the pandemic just about the time when the vaccines were coming out. And I forget the specific details, but this group took like 40 or 50 different human tissue samples and gave them the antibodies to see where they’re attached to.

And what they found was that certain tissues attracted these antibodies more than other tissues. And the one that stood out in my mind is that the heart was one of the highest areas of attraction to these antibodies. That means your body’s going to attack your own tissues, especially the heart.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:48:10] Yeah. And working in ICU in those early days in New York as an ENT specialist, of all things. I mean, you were in the epicentre there. It must have been very, very stressful.

Dr Steven Park: [00:48:26] You know, everyone was either in shock or just disbelief. We couldn’t believe it. It’s like in a war zone. And people were dying. They were dying in the emergency rooms. All the patients I took care of in the ICU died. It just. I’ve never been through that kind of experience. In such density. High density.

I mean, I went through a surgical internship. I saw a lot of illnesses and deaths, but this was just unheard of. Yeah. And then. Then of course, logistically, the hospitals had to kind of recover their revenue. And so there was more pressure to see more patients. So you can imagine how that would pan out in terms of…

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:49:14] And I’m guessing, and I think I was right in that if you were dealing with a patient with COVID, then there was a higher rebate for you for the hospital. That was then much more.

Dr Steven Park: [00:49:26] Much more. So a lot of people are diagnosed with COVID, but that’s not the reason why they’re hospitalised.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:49:33] Hmm. Mm hmm.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:49:35] So that way, the more people that were diagnosed with COVID, the higher the rebate, government rebate to the hospital system.

Dr Steven Park: [00:49:42] But many, many orders of magnitude higher.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:49:45] Many orders of magnitude. But you were also saying people were dying. So, I mean, this is a serious illness from an ENT perspective. You can’t you wouldn’t dismiss it as just like the flu.

Dr Steven Park: [00:50:00] Oh, no, absolutely not. It was a serious problem. But looking back in retrospect, and I think a lot of these prominent doctors that are speaking out against this, like Dr. McCullough.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:50:15] Yes.

Dr Steven Park: [00:50:16] And I agree with him that if we had put into place these preventative protocols, we could save a lot more lives.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:50:23] Yeah. By that, do you mean vitamin D and zinc…?

Dr Steven Park: [00:50:27] The whole cocktail.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:50:28] The whole cocktail, which is outlined in that frontline COVID critical care network, the FLCCC, which I mean the whole hatchet job done on ivermectin, is an extraordinary example of negligence.

Dr Steven Park: [00:50:44] Yeah, especially what they did with that fake study where they gave toxic doses of ivermectin to prove that it’s dangerous. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:50:52] Yeah. Yeah. I just read yesterday that the FDA has approved pharmacists directly giving patients Paxlovid, which is the Pfizer equivalent as best it could do of ivermectin. You know, it’s an antiviral. It’s about $700 for a five-day course.

And now pharmacists in America, the FDA has just approved that Pharmacists can directly prescribe this for their patients, whereas it’s illegal for a doctor or pharmacist to prescribe ivermectin, which would be more effective. And 2.50 for a course of five days. It’s just extraordinary, isn’t it? The patent, I think it’s the patented drugs that rule decision-making. If it’s a patented drug, it’s a good thing.

Dr Steven Park: [00:51:49] Yeah, well, I’m not surprised about this. You probably know that in America, the government and the health industries have been taken over by industry. And this is a well-known fact that the majority of the budget of the FDA is actually paid for by drug companies.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:52:06] Mm hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:52:07] You know what’s called the user fees? When they apply for a new patent, they have to pay up to, like, $1,000,000 or more. And that’s about 70% of that division of the FDA budget. And the CDC also has a foundation. It’s a major conflict of interest.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:52:28] The major conflict of interest. I see. I don’t really. You mentioned a conspiracy theory. I actually don’t see it as a conspiracy. I just see it as a very elegant business plan. It’s a very elegant business model. It’s not a conspiracy. And If the evidence is anything to go by on return on investment. The drug companies have done extremely well.

Dr Steven Park: [00:52:51] You have to admire their efforts and their success.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:52:54] Yeah. So are you an optimist, steven, as you know, you’ve left medicine, and you still got many, many years, I would imagine, of medicine and health care in front of you? What are you doing now? Tell us what you’re focussing on now.

Dr Steven Park: [00:53:09] So I offer products, information products and courses online to help people see better lives better and have more fulfilling lives. But I’ve kind of expanded from breathing and sleep to more of a holistic approach. So it’s not just our diets but our lifestyles, stress reduction, toxin elimination in a very holistic manner. And that’s been much more rewarding to me than just treating the airway.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:53:39] Hmm.

Dr Steven Park: [00:53:40] Now, I also work. I mean, honestly, if my biggest mentors the last 20 years have been dentists.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:53:46] Right.

Dr Steven Park: [00:53:47] And I mentioned a number of dentists in my book. There are many more I didn’t mention. And Dr. Brian Palmer, I don’t know if you remember him.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:53:56] I do know. He’s sadly no longer with us, but.

Dr Steven Park: [00:53:59] He was my very first mentor.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:54:01] Yes, well, he was a legend. He was terrific. Yeah. And he was very focussed on this jaw development, upper airway, and its implications.

Dr Steven Park: [00:54:12] Hmm. And so, my goal is to reach as many people as possible, to empower people to take control of their own health and not rely on doctors. And I think that knowing what we know, it is absolutely possible to come off most prescribed medications. Even if you’re obese and diabetic and not on five different medications, it’s possible with the right resources and support. But the system is set up against that. It’s set up to continue more and more medications. Hmm.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:54:43] Well, I just want to finish with one last question. And this is you taking a step back from your role in medicine as a doctor and an academic and now a health coach. We’re all individuals on a health journey in our lives. What do you think the biggest challenge is for people on that journey in this modern world?

The Biggest Health Challenge

Dr Steven Park: [00:55:07] I think the biggest challenge for myself and others and my patients, our clients, is too much information. We have too much multiple sources of information you don’t know who to trust. Oftentimes, it’s very conflicting information, and you’re always going to have your own biases based on what you’ve really learnt already. And so that’s the biggest challenge is because people are going to just dig into their own way of thinking.

And also, with social media, you’re probably familiar with this concept that whatever you search for, it just reinforces what you already know, what you believe in. So there’s no way you’re going to look at other options. Even if you’re open to the idea you’re not going to be fed that those new ideas. And so it’s a challenge, even as I do research for my products. I get sucked into that same black hole as well, you know, on YouTube or on the Web.

It’s really hard to control too much mass information that’s coming at me. I’m wasting a lot of time just doing research. And so I think that’s a tough question to answer because it’s a totally new world, as you can imagine. It’s not just with health, but politically. Economically.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:56:05] Yeah. Hmm. Well, Steven, thank you so much for joining us today. And we will, of course, have links to your website and to those programmes. And thank you so much.

Dr Steven Park: [00:56:43] Can I also mention one more thing for your listeners?

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:56:44] Sure. Yeah.

Dr Steven Park: [00:56:44] Well, I have a book, an e-book called How to Unstuff Your Stuffy Nose.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:56:44] Yes.

Dr Steven Park: [00:56:44] It’s a $10 value. But for your listeners only. They can go to my website, drstevenparker.com/unstuff, and you can sign up for the e-book for free.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:57:06] Terrific. Thank you so much.

Dr Steven Park: [00:57:08] My pleasure. It’s a pleasure.

Conclusion

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:57:10] Well, it’s so interesting to meet Steven because, as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, I have been familiar with his book Sleep Interrupted for many years. So to have the opportunity to talk to him was an opportunity that I was really looking forward to.

It was so interesting to hear that Steven, who was clearly got quite a few more years of professional life ahead of him, has chosen to withdraw from the profession in 2021 after his experience with COVID and his disillusionment with the medical system.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:57:44] Now, this is a theme I’ve explored in many other podcasts. I encourage you to go back and look at those – The Elephant in the Room, Trust the Science???, The Ps of the Pandemic, and the many others. We’ve spoken to Dr. Philip Altman, and we’ve done various Healthy Bites on this very subject.

And it’s a subject that I do think is an important one, clearly. I mean, boy, if that’s an understatement. But exploring the whole way the pandemic has been approached, the way that the authorities in America’s case, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the CDC (Centre for Disease Control).

Anyway, the way those organisations have dealt with this, the way any mention of anything other than patented drugs, you will recall the episode I did with the Australian Government Forum on COVID Treatment, early COVID treatment they called it. 26 months after the beginning of the pandemic.

And I showed you four of the great product champions and key opinion leaders in Australia who spent the 2 hours of the forum talking about nothing other than the newly patented drugs, which they were very keen to promote.

Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:59:06] And Steven, obviously, and many other health practitioners have also become incredibly disillusioned with that. And that’s why this kind of podcast, our Unstress Health Community, why connecting with like-minded people that. Like Steven said, his mission is to empower people to overcome their sleep-related breathing problems.

But our mission is to empower you to take control of your health, to understand stress, to redefine and understand stress, to identify and minimise as many of those stressors as possible. While on the other hand, building resilience and like Steven, I would say we would focus on sleep and breathe as the foundational pillars.

So I think it was great to connect with him, and we’ll, of course, have links to his website with the programmes that he mentioned himself. I hope this finds you well., Until next time. This is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Be well.

 

 

This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health, and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions.