Can someone explain how sleep apnea contributes to wt gain, diabetes, and cardiac disease?
Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at
2:48 am
dsparkyrn asked:
I have been told that if I do not sleep through the night, snore, feel tired and groggy when I do have to get up that I may have sleep apnea and that it is very dangerous…. I would like more info as I am going to have to convince my husband why we need to invest in a magnetic air sleep system I have been investigating at http://www.mynikken.net/winters Thanks, Fact & Figures would be helpful.
I have been told that if I do not sleep through the night, snore, feel tired and groggy when I do have to get up that I may have sleep apnea and that it is very dangerous…. I would like more info as I am going to have to convince my husband why we need to invest in a magnetic air sleep system I have been investigating at http://www.mynikken.net/winters Thanks, Fact & Figures would be helpful.
Tagged with: Diabetes • Sleep • Sleep System
Filed under: Sleep Apnea
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Sleep Apnea is usually a sympton of excessive weight. I have it and use a CPAP to sleep, and now I no longer snore. Rather than invest in magnetic sleeping systems, go to the doctor and have a sleep study done. Most insurances will cover a CPAP, so there is little or no cost to you.
Some treatments involve lifestyle changes, such as avoiding alcohol and medications that relax the central nervous system (for example, sedatives and muscle relaxants), losing weight, and quitting smoking. Some people are helped by special pillows or devices that keep them from sleeping on their backs, or oral appliances to keep the airway open during sleep. If these conservative methods are inadequate, doctors often recommend continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), in which a face mask is attached to a tube and a machine that blows pressurized air into the mask and through the airway to keep it open. There are also surgical procedures that can be used to remove and tighten tissue and widen the airway, but the success rate is not high. Some individuals may need a combination of therapies to successfully treat their sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea causes a person’s breathing to become irregular or briefly stop as the result of a collapsed airway. People who have weight gain may develop Type 2 Diabetes, experience heart disease, and have sleep apnea. People with heart disease may also have a less common form of sleep apnea called Central Sleep Apnea. Before investing in an expensive sleep system, see your doctor first for a sleep test for a proper diagnosis. If you do have sleep apnea, using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine is the recommended treatment.
Sleep apnea is a condition where your airway becomes closed off while you sleep. The lack of oxygen causes you to choke and wake up so you can breathe. The most common cause of sleep apnea is being overweight; With the extra fat around the abdomen and neck, it becomes harder to breath when you are sleeping because when you sleep your breaths become shallower to begin with.
Sleep apnea contributes to weight gain by causing you to lose sleep every night. You are exhausted every day, and eventually this chronic exhaustion causes your metabolism to slow; you don’t have enough energy to waste, basically. Also, it will cause you to seek sugars that are high in carbohydrates in hopes of gaining energy. Additionally, the lack of sleep contributes to stress which triggers hormonal changes that lead to weight gain.
So sleep apnea leads to exhaustion which leads to stress which leads to cardiac disease, hypertension weight gain which leads to cardiac disease, hypertension and diabetes (which causes cardiac disease and hypertension) and leads to…worse sleep apnea. Can you see how all these feed off each other?
I wouldn’t waste my money on the Nikken system unless you just want a new bed. The Nikken products may be exceedingly comfortable, but sleep apnea has nothing to do with how comfy your bed is.
Your best bet is to talk to a doctor; he can get you in for a sleep study to find out if you have sleep apnea (they watch you sleep and count how many times you stop breathing). If you do have sleep apnea, it is fortunately very treatable. If you already overweight, then dropping some poundage might be all it takes. You may also need a CPAP machine to sleep with at night, which will push oxygen into your lungs and keep your airway open so that you don’t wake up choking.
Sleep apnea if you have it is very dangerous. It means that you may be having episodes during the night where you are not breathing and potenially hypoxic (your brain may not be getting enough oxygen.) Commonly occurs in patients with redundant neck tissue, large adenoids or have some reason to block the airway when lying down, such as a large tongue. However, you do not have to be obese to have it. Even fit athletes can have it. One study estimated that 1/3 of the linebackers in the NFL had it.
No one knows exactly why people gain weight with sleep apnea, it is associated with obesity but the have found that people with poor sleep patterns do have increased weight gain. What studies have been able to show is that sleep apnea has a profound effect on the cardiovascular system.
Sleep apnea increase your pulmonary resistance pressures and can put increased strain on your heart. This can worsen congestive heart failure if you have it, cause increased blood pressure during the day and night, increase your risk for strokes and arrythmias. No one really knows exactly all the mechanisms involved and there are still many health care professionals who are unaware how dangerous this can be.
A special bed alone is generally not the answer. Your money would be better spent finding a physician who specializes in sleep medicine who can do a sleep study and see if you truly have sleep apnea. If you have it, they may recommend a continuous postive aiway pressure machine called a CPAP machine. Studies have shown if you use the machine, it can not only lower nighttime blood pressures but also daytime ones when you’re not using it. From the studies I read it can be as much as 7-10 mmHg or more.
It in an of itself does not cause diabetes but there has been an association with altered glucose metaboism in those that do have it. I have tried researching it myself when I was a resident and I could not find any conclusive evidence on how this worked.
What I do know is that the effect of sleep apnea on the cardiovascular system can be profound. My father, also a physician, is a cardiologist. He had a patient that was so sick, he was in intesive care for 2 weeks and in severe heart failure. The family was basically told there was little more they could do and he was not getting better. My father was consulted and reviewed his case. Initially, he also had agreed with the other physicians, that likely this man was going to die, then he walked in early one morning and watched the guy sleep. They guy have sleep apnea and was tested and treated. He left the ICU 2 days later and eventually went home.
This is a pretty dramatic story but it made me later want to research it further for a residency project. The information I later found was substantial and earned me an award for educating the other residents and staff.
I hope this helps.