Shaq Has Sleep Apnea Disorder

Turns out Shaquille O’ Neal is one of the many people in the United States who suffers from sleep apnea, the disorder in which you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you sleep.

Apparently it was his girlfriend, Nikki “Hoopz” Alexander, who first noticed that the Big Aristotle was having what she suspected to be sleep apnea.  Turns out she was right, and it’s a good thing she got Shaq to go get professionally tested for the common disorder—left untreated, it can increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and diabetes.
Scary.

Leave it to Shaq to turn this negative into a positive, by filming an informative video on sleep apnea with Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine.  Because if anyone can make wearing that ridiculous headgear cool, it’s Shaquille O’ Neal.

Yep, Shaq takes a rather boring subject like sleep apnea and somehow makes it funny and interesting at the same time.  Sure his basketball skills have eroded to the point where an orange traffic pylon would produce better on the court than O”Neal, but there’s no denying that Shaq has the uncanny ability to turn the mundane into the “fundane.”