Christian Guilleminault

Doctor Christian Guilleminault is a physician and researcher in the field of sleep medicine. Dr. Guilleminault, a French citizen, was persuaded to join the faculty at Stanford University. He has been closely involved with many developments in sleep medicine from the 1970s until the present day. Guilleminault has authored over four hundred articles in peer-reviewed medical journals. He has won many awards for excellent quality of his research in the field of sleep medicine.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Guilleminault played a central role in the early discovery of obstructive sleep apnea. During the mid 1970s, he wrote many articles which correctly explained the relationship between hypertension and obstructive sleep apnea. While working at the Stanford University Sleep Disorders Clinic in 1975, Guilleminault became keenly interested in reports published by Italian sleep researcher Elio Lugaresi. Lugaresi had reported that nocturnal hypertension was present in patients who snored. Doctor Guilleminault persuaded Stanford cardiologists John Shroeder and Ara Tilkian to spend nights in the hospital's clinical research center, to work on monitoring the systemic and pulmonary arterial blood pressure in patients. The team observed that when patients fell asleep and began snoring, that they encountered apneas. They observed that a patient's blood pressure rose dramatically, as if the patient were lifting heavy weights.^[6]

Guilleminault published some papers which showed dramatic improvements when severe apnea patients were treated with tracheostomies. Prior to treatment patients had dramatic cardiac abnormalities during sleep. A completely normal heartbeat returned when the tracheostomy tube was opened. When the tube was closed again during sleep, the abnormalities returned.^[6]

Working in collaboration with Dr. William C. Dement, Guilleminault established the Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) which is still in use today to diagnose sleep apnea and measure the degree of its severity.

References

1. ^ Attribution of the Christian Guilleminault Award for Research in Sleep Medicine, World Association of Sleep Medicine (2005)
2. ^ Distinguished Scientist Award, Sleep Research Society (2005)
3. ^ Honorary professor, Department of Oto-laryngology, Medical Sciences School of the Capital University, Beijing, China (2005)
4. ^ Life Achievement Award, National Sleep Foundation (2005)
5. ^ Doctor “Honoris Causa”, University of Liege (School of Medicine) (Belgium) (2004)
6. ^ ^{a b} William C. Dement, The Promise of Sleep, Random House Inc. 1999, pg. 179

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Name	Guilleminault, Christian
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