If just the thought of losing your breath as you sleep is frightening, you should see what it looks like when it really happens.

This video of a man with sleep apnea was posted on the Web site of the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

In the video, the man stops breathing for 40 seconds in his sleep. But what’s even more frightening is what you don’t see: He also operates heavy machinery for a living— and his apnea has left him tired at work.

This can’t end well.

And this video shows just one apnea incident — but patients who have the condition can stop breathing dozens and even hundreds of times each night, depriving the heart and brain of essential oxygen.

One new study finds women who battle the condition have a 350 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease — and other studies have found similar risks for men. Along with heart problems, apnea has been linked to dementia, stroke, diabetes and more — with another new study showing how apnea can even boost your risk of sudden deafness by nearly 50 percent.

In the short term, some apnea patients use continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP machines — uncomfortable oxygen masks that come with risks of their own, and that’s if you can even manage to keep them on all night.

In one study, only two out of 35 patients could tolerate them long enough to see a benefit.

But even if you can handle wearing an oxygen mask all night, it’s not a permanent solution.

In many cases, apnea is caused by obesity — so if you’re overweight and your spouse has seen you lose your breath in the night, drop those extra pounds ASAP and chances are you won’t need CPAP.

And if you’ve gotten too big over the years and find yourself not as rested in the morning as you used to be, you might have the condition, too. Other warning signs to watch for: headaches, waking up with a dry mouth or sore throat, frequent nighttime bathroom trips and mood changes.

A night in a sleep clinic can help you figure it out — but in the meantime, lose the weight anyway. Even if it’s not causing sleep apnea — yet — it’s not doing you any favors.

Everyone’s terrified of trans fats these days, and it’s not hard to see why: They’ve been so vilified that some places are actually banning them.

Must be something to it, right?

There is — because the trans fats that come from hydrogenated vegetable oils are every bit as bad as their reputation, and then some: They’ll up your odds of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, depression and more.

Avoid them like the plague, and I’ll tell you how in a moment (it’s not as easy as it sounds).

But there’s another type of trans fat — the trans fats found in fresh meats and dairy. And the latest research confirms that not only is this stuff harmless, but you want to go out of your way to get it.

Researchers put 61 women onto a diet rich in these natural trans fats for a month — something the health officials who are issuing blanket trans fat bans would have you believe is a recipe for disaster.

No disaster here.

In fact, according to the study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, these women had no increase in any of the traditional mainstream risk factors for heart problems — including no changes to their levels of LDL cholesterol or triglycerides.

And for a month, they got to eat some actual fresh, natural fats — something more of us could use these days, since natural meats and dairy are some of the healthiest foods around.

Unfortunately, most people don’t get their trans fats from natural meats and dairy. They get them from fast food, snacks and even so-called “healthy” alternatives like margarine.

And spotting these food by checking the nutritional labels isn’t as easy as you might think. Believe it or not food companies are allowed to round small amounts of trans fats down to zero, as if they don’t exist at all.

Meanwhile, all it takes is just a few servings for that little bit to turn into too much — a little supermarket coffee creamer and some margarine each day, for example, and you could actually exceed the recommended daily intake for these deadly fats.

The fact is you can’t trust the “ZERO TRANS FATS” package blurbs or even the nutritional information tables. Go right to the ingredients label instead — and if the product contains any partially hydrogenated vegetable oils at all, put it back.

That’s a sure sign of trans fats — and even if it was truly trans fat free, odds are it’s something you shouldn’t be eating anyway.

And really, let’s get real here; is there anyone who actually likes the taste of margarine?

It’s like a battle between two horror movie monsters: In one corner, you’ve got the corn industry responsible for high-fructose corn syrup as well as all the other corn-based additives used in everything from food to fuel.

They’ve been trying to change the name of HFCS to “corn sugar,” launching a multimillion-dollar ad campaign and lobbying the FDA to allow them to use the name in both marketing and ingredients labels.

In the other corner, you’ve got the “real” sugar industry — and they’ve just filed a lawsuit to block the ads, supposedly in the name of consumer protection. The name “corn sugar,” they say, is just too confusing. People might think they’re getting “real” sugar when they’re really just getting HFCS.

It’s enough to make your head spin, especially since this is a game about semantics and marketing — not health. The “real” sugar industry has lost plenty of business to the HFCS people over the years, and they’ll be damned if they’re going to let the corn people take the “sugar” name, too.

So they’ve tried to position themselves as the good guys here. And amazingly, we’ve fallen for it — hook, line and sweetener: Foods now wear a “MADE WITH REAL SUGAR!” label like a badge of honor.

Some people even think they can taste the difference — although a recent taste test proves otherwise. People were asked to try either regular HFCS-sweetened Coca-Cola or the increasingly trendy “Mexican Coke” made with real sugar — and they picked the HFCS stuff by a 7-to-1 margin.

But at the end of the day, your body doesn’t care much whether the sugar comes from corn, cane or beets. Sugar is sugar — and it’s all bad for you.

Sure, some studies have found that HFCS might be a little worse for you than real sugar — but does it matter? One will cause obesity… the other will cause obesity, too, maybe just a little faster.

The bottom line on this is that any product with added sugar — no matter what they call it — shouldn’t be on the menu. Let the only sugars you get be the truly natural kind: The sugar you’ll find in a piece of fruit.

There are some clear benefits to working the night shift: higher pay and… well.. OK, there’s one clear benefit to working the night shift.

And in exchange for more money, you’re literally putting your life on the line if you take that night job: Shift work has been linked to obesity, heart disease and more.

Now, the latest research adds one more big-time risk to the list: Diabetes.

And nurses, you might want to pay close attention to this one — because the latest study was done specifically on your profession, as researchers compared data on nurses who worked night and rotating shifts to nurses who kept to the daytime.

I know what you’re thinking: What nurses work only during the day? But trust me, they’re out there — and try to make yourself one of them, because those who worked even three nights a month had a 58 percent boost in diabetes risk over 20 years.

Not planning to work 20 years on the night shift? Better keep an eye on the calendar — it can happen more easily than you might think.

Besides, even nurses who spent less time on the night shift had a much higher risk of diabetes: A 40 percent boost for those who spent at least a decade on rotating shifts, 20 percent increase after three years, and a five percent increase after a single year.

The study didn’t finger a specific cause, but anyone who’s worked the night shift — and I’ve been there myself — knows what happens.

First, there are the obvious changes in habits. You tend to eat lousy food. You tend not to get out much, especially if your night shifts are more regular, so you’re more stationary.

But there are also more subtle changes taking place on the inside — hormonal changes as your body tries to flip its internal clock.

Tries, and fails… because no matter how many years you spend on nights, it’s never easy to go to sleep when the sun is up.

Put it together, and you’ve got the perfect set of risk factors for diabetes and any number of diseases.

So that day job you have? Don’t quit it… no matter what.