I’m Katie Viehmann-Wical
I love research puzzles! Actually, I enjoy lots of things about research: reading, reviewing & editing, participating in and leading research. The puzzle of the obesity paradox fascinated me because healthcare providers and researchers had been trying to understand and explain it for years but could not identify a causative pattern. So, I spent a decade studying and researching different aspects of the obesity paradox until I was able to figure out a reason for the obesity paradox. It came down to how a person breathes when they sleep, specifically during dream sleep, as the most important determining factor for where an individual would land in the U-shaped disease risk curve of the obesity paradox.
My doctorate is in Health Education, and I have worked in various healthcare positions over the past four decades. The reason sleep quality clicked for me is most likely because of my background working in respiratory therapy. I have also worked in dementia care, which has a surprising link to sleep quality, and how we breathe when sleeping being a predictive factor for identifying individuals who are at highest risk for dementia. And I have spent a couple decades working as a clinical health educator, helping patients decrease chronic disease risk, and improve their quality of life.
I have always been curious about the world, different aspects of health, and I have always wanted to learn more. It’s definitely a crazy internal drive to want to focus on studying and learning so much, but that is what makes me unique.
Right now, there are very few healthcare providers in the world who understand sleep quality and the obesity paradox. So this website is devoted to connecting the research dots to help others understand this bigger picture of health.
I am very excited to have this platform to share my knowledge and understanding of the bigger picture of health. If you think about a braid, total health is a braid, but not just 2 strands. It takes at least 3 to 4 strands to keep a braid intact. The strands for health are not just diet and exercise by themselves, there also needs to be sleep quality and stress management.
In the past 50 years, the health focus has mainly been on diet and exercise. But starting with D and E has not worked for preventing chronic disease, we need to start with the A, B, C’s: Airway, Breathing and Circulation. And we will also cover the full alphabet of health topics, bringing in research to clarify each point.
Thank you for joining me on this journey of exploration!
Katie Viehmann-Wical, DrPH, MCHES, RRT-NPS
Doctorate in Public Health, Health Education, Sleep Health Emphasis
Master’s level Certified Health Education Specialist
Registered Respiratory Therapist
Neonatal Pediatric Specialist
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