One of the most common causes of poor sleep is apnea – and for many people who suffer from this chronic condition, there’s a simple answer.

Lose some weight.

A new study finds that obese people who drop even a few of those extra pounds can improve their sleep – in some cases dramatically.

The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, used data on 264 obese patients who suffered from sleep apnea and type 2 diabetes. Some of these patients were put on diets, while others went through counseling.

As the dieters lost weight, their apnea improved. Twice as many dieters were able to move to a less serious form of apnea (from, say, severe to moderate or moderate to mild), while 14 percent of them managed to get completely cured.

Most of the non-dieters actually suffered from worsening apnea.

The key here is the amount of weight – it didn’t take much for the benefits to kick in, just a 10 percent drop in weight resulted in better sleep.

Now, if you’re obese, you should probably lose more weight than that. After all, your goal shouldn’t just be better sleep, but better health and a better life. But it’s a fine start – and the immediate problem of apnea is a pretty good reason to take care of this.

Some of you may be thinking this doesn’t apply to you. But don’t be so quick to dismiss it. Many people who have sleep apnea never know it. Unless your partner notices you gasping for breath in the night and tells you about it, how would you?

Some 18 million Americans are believed to have this condition, and in severe cases patients end up sleeping with a device to supply oxygen during the night. The condition also makes you more likely to die from any number of causes, and has been linked to heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and daytime sleepiness.

The study’s author, Gary Foster, suggests controlling your portions by eating prepackaged frozen meals aimed at dieters, and that’s just about the worst advice I can think of.

An endless line of overpriced food high in sodium and carbs and low in taste is not a long-term recipe for dieting success – and it’s the reason so many diets fail.

Instead, find a good plan that you can stick to. Low-carb diets allow a great variety of foods with little to no calorie counting or portion control. Instead, you can eat delicious and healthy animal fats, all the veggies you want, and watch the pounds come off.

Not only is it a great diet to lose that 10 percent needed for better sleep, but it’s a great lifestyle to keep the weight off for good – and live better overall.

Nothing beats a good night’s sleep – but when was the last time you got one?

If you can’t remember, here’s some sobering news: New research links poor sleep to Alzheimer’s disease.

A study on mice finds that levels of a protein associated with the disease rise and fall along with sleep. But when the mice were deprived of sleep, those levels of amyloid beta skyrocketed, according to a study published in the journal Science.

Alzheimer’s patients have high levels of this protein in their brains, so you really want make sure this stuff isn’t building up inside your own noggin – and it seems one great way to do that is to simply get enough sleep.

And that’s not the only reason to make sure you’re getting your nightly ration of Zzz’s.

Ever notice that you’re more likely to catch a cold when you’re tired? That’s not a coincidence. Poor sleep can decimate your immune system. Insomnia can also speed the aging process, slow your brain and reaction time, and add stress to your life, marriage and job.

I know getting more sleep is easier said than done – and you’re not the only one experiencing problems. Turn the TV to almost any channel, and it won’t be long before you see a commercial for a med to help you get to sleep.

A few minutes later, you’ll probably see a commercial for an energy drink to keep you awake.

Here’s a good way to know if you’re getting enough sleep – can you wake up without an alarm clock? If you tend to awaken naturally, on your own, and feeling refreshed, chances are you’re doing it right.

But if you have to force yourself out of bed after a few futile pounds of the snooze button and then slam down three cups of coffee before you can even begin to function, then your body is trying to tell you something.

The answer to your sleep problem will depend on what’s causing it – but I can tell you one place you shouldn’t look: prescription meds. These things have terrible side effects and many of them are addictive.

Dr. Casey Adams has written about some of the best all-natural cures for sleeplessness at HealthierTalk.com, and it’s a great place to start (and maybe even end) your own search for the perfect night’s sleep.

Keep missing out on that crucial sleep, and you won’t just be unhealthy. You could end up with dementia.

That’s a pretty high price for too much tossing and turning.

And if you’re still having trouble sleeping, read on – because there’s one thing many people can do on their own, without meds, to sleep better.

The feds came down hard on the biggest of all the Big Pharma kingpins – hitting Pfizer with $2.3 billion in fines for illegal drug promotions.

The feds say Pfizer gave doctors free trips to resorts, rounds of golf, massage sessions and more to promote unapproved off-label uses of its meds. And yes, it looks like many docs really can be bought that easily.

The Justice Department says the Pfizer sales team used these junkets and other opportunities to give physicians false and misleading information about its drugs – information that may have led to one of your own prescriptions.

One of the meds in this case, the painkiller Bextra, was so dangerous that it has since been pulled from shelves.

Bextra had been approved only for some very specific kinds of pain – but if your doctor was enjoying one of those free massages, he was likely told that it could be used for just about any kind of pain, and at higher-than-approved doses.

And in between those rounds of free golf, it probably never came up that there was virtually no evidence that this drug – which has been linked to serious heart and kidney problems – was any better than ibuprofen for most kinds of pain.

So sure, Pfizer’s actions may have been criminal – but the other crime here is the number of docs willing to simply believe just about anything the Big Pharma sales force tells them – provided the information comes with scented candles and massage oil.

The company, naturally, admitted to no wrongdoing – but did agree to the record settlement. The fines are the largest ever paid by a U.S. drug company, and the biggest penalty in any criminal case in U.S. history.

But while this may sound like a bold, tough act against what the feds called a repeat offender… it really isn’t. As crazy as it may seem, $2.3 billion is practically nothing to a company this big. Just one of Pfizer’s top drugs can bring in that amount in a few months.

Here’s how little $2.3 billion means to this company: It had almost no impact on stock prices. One analyst said these fines are simply the cost of doing business, and investors seem to agree.

In fact, the company has so much gall that, as it worked to negotiate this settlement with the government, it continued to engage in these very same illegal practices, according to federal prosecutors.

Now, Pfizer will have a Department of Health and Human Services inspector peering over its shoulder for the next five years – but it remains to be seen how short the leash will really be.

If history’s any indication, Big Pharma will find another way around the rules, pay another fine… and the process starts all over again.

Golf, anyone?

One of the world’s biggest drug makers seems to like playing games with numbers – and I’m not talking about sudoku.

The FDA says a Bayer plant in Germany is breaking the rules by monkeying around with test results – and thousands of women are paying the price.

The plant in question makes the key ingredient used in two popular birth-control pills, Yaz and Yasime. These pills raked in $1.8 billion last year, but they’ve also earned the company 74 lawsuits from women who blame their health problems on these pills.

Companies that sell drugs to Americans are required to test the ingredients and to report the results of each individual sample. But in the typical “above-the-law” fashion that Big Pharma is notorious for, this plant would average out the test results of several samples, and report that average instead.

That might not sound like a big deal, but let me boil it down for you. Using this method, a failed test could actually become a passing one if the result is simply averaged in with a series of other tests. Kind of like grading a class rather than a student – a kid who fails miserably will make the grade if the rest of the class does well enough.

But no one’s kidding anyone in cases like that – the kid didn’t get any smarter. And a poor test is still a poor test, no matter how you look at it.

Sadly, this case also shows just how toothless the FDA really is. The inspection took place back in March, and the administration sprang into action. If you’re thinking that means a recall, or seizures and inspections of shipments from this plant, you’re wrong. If you’re thinking of mandatory re-tests of everything from this manufacturer, you’re still wrong.

The FDA wrote a letter.

That’s right – a letter. About a month later, Bayer replied with a letter of its own, defending the plant and saying that, in any case, changes were being made.

Then, four whole months passed before the FDA responded with yet another letter, disagreeing with the drug company’s “rationale and conclusion,” saying the problems they found for the most part remain.

You might think now we’re getting somewhere – at last, the FDA is putting its foot down, right?

Wrong again.

The feds say they will consider delaying shipments from this plant until the problems have been corrected, but so far that hasn’t happened. I don’t think anyone’s holding their breath on that, either.

Instead, the feds are asking Bayer to provide a plan to address the problem.

Here’s the kicker: This is part of a new streamlined FDA process.