Sleep Apnea: The Real Risks Involved
"18 million Americans suffer from it. It can lead to both physical and psychological problems. Perhaps you, as many do, have it and aren’t even aware of it.
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that is characterized by snoring and pauses in breathing at night, waking the person momentarily before they fall back asleep. This disruption of sleep can occur several times a night, 5 to 30 times or more in just one hour. A person, both adults and children alike, can suffer from this disorder for years, even decades, before realizing it.
Studies have shown that sleep apnea can lead to problems like irritability, daytime fatigue, depression, hypertension, heart attack, and stroke, but recent studies have shown that the risks are actually more serious than, well, a heart attack. And while obesity can lead to this disorder, the disorder itself can lead to obesity.
The authors of a review posted in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal wrote, “Metabolic health … is largely dependent on behavioral factors such as dietary habits and physical activity. In the past few years, sleep loss as a disorder characterizing the 24-hour lifestyle of modern societies has increasingly been shown to represent an additional behavioral factor adversely affecting metabolic health.”
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“Our findings show that sleep apnea is an independent risk factor for incident pneumonia,” theysaid. “Our results also demonstrated an exposure-response relation in patients with more severe sleep apnea may have a higher risk of pneumonia than patients with sleep apnea of milder severity.”
Heart disease, dementia, diabetes … the negative effects continue to mount up. However, along with the worrisome research comes some hope.
Continuous positive airway pressure devices, or CPAP machines, are currently the most common treatment out there. They consist of a plastic facial mask, which the patient wears at night, connected by a flexible tube to a small bedside machine. Using air pressure, it keeps the patient’s airways open during sleep.
“We know that obstructive sleep apnea is a potential cause of high blood pressure, and we know that CPAP use is associated with reductions in blood pressure in people with hypertension,” sayssleep specialist Vishesh K. Kapur, MD. “And now there is reasonable evidence that this treatment can prevent high blood pressure in patients who don’t already have it.”
Modern CPAP machines also come with a built-in humidifier to help prevent dryness in the throat/nasal passages."
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