Michael Jackson went 60 days without real sleep
Michael Jackson died while preparing to set a world record for the most successful concert run, but he unknowingly set another record that led to his death, CNN reported.
Jackson may be the only human ever to go two months without REM -- rapid eye movement -- sleep, which is vital to keep the brain and body alive. The 60 nights of propofol infusions Dr. Conrad Murray said he gave Jackson to treat his insomnia is something a sleep expert says no one had ever undergone.
"The symptoms that Mr. Jackson was exhibiting were consistent with what someone might expect to see of someone suffering from total sleep deprivation over a chronic period," Dr. Charles Czeisler, a Harvard Medical School sleep expert, testified Friday at the wrongful-death trial of concert promoter AEG LIve.
The symptoms documented by e-mails among show producers and testimony from his chef, hairstylist and choreographers included his inability to do standard dances or remember words to songs he sang for decades, paranoia, talking to himself and hearing voices, and severe weight loss, Czeisler said.
"I believe that that constellation of symptoms was more probably than not induced by total sleep deprivation over a chronic period," he testified.
If the singer had not died on June 25, 2009, of an overdose of the surgical anesthetic, the lack of REM sleep may have taken his life within days anyway, according Czeisler's testimony Friday.