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If it’s left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to other serious heart-related health problems such as hypertension, high blood pressure, arrhythmia, hypercapnia, stroke and heart disease. The link between heart disease and sleep apnea is still not fully understood, however.
People who are suffering from heart problems tend to have a high number of occurrences of sleep apnea. However, it isn’t fully clear if the sleep apnea is the direct cause of the heart disease.
One thing that is clear is that someone who is suffering from sleep apnea has a much greater chance of developing hypertension. It has been shown that people who are suffering from both sleep apnea and high blood pressure show considerable improvement when treated for both. The same goes for sleep apnea and heart disease.
When a sleep apnea episode happens at night, the blood pressure increases because of a drop in the oxygen levels in the body. When this occurs, the brain tells the blood vessels to “tighten up” in order to get more oxygen to the brain and the heart, followed by the rest of the body.
The stoppages of breathing at night can last between 1 and 4 minutes, causing a large amount of stress to the heart. This also tends to carry forward into the daytime while awake. The mechanisms triggered by low oxygen levels in the body continue to operate during the day.
Sleep apnea sufferers have a 2.3 times greater chance of developing congestive heart failure than those who aren’t dealing with it. Those suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) have a 1.5 times greater chance of having a stroke.
Sleep apnea can also contribute to more complications for anyone suffering from atrial fibrillation, a condition where the upper part of the heart (the atrium) is beating out of sync with the lower part (the ventricle).
To treat atrial fibrillation, the heart is cardioverted, meaning the atrium is reset to make it beat in sync with the ventricle. Over 50% of the people who have this procedure done suffer a relapse of the atrial fibrillation. In sleep apnea sufferers, that number has been shown to increase to 80%.
Regular doctor visits and following their treatment recommendations are critical to anyone suffering from both these health problems.

Sleep apnea is not a disorder to be taken lightly and is a condition that is not going to go away by itself in time. Sleep apnea is in fact classed as a “progressive disease” which means that just like heart disease, cancer and diabetes it worsens with time. There is considerable dispute in the medical community over the effect that sleep apnea has on other medical conditions. This said, there is a definite link between sleep apnea and a variety of physical conditions including hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, heart attack, pulmonary hypertension, stroke and kidney failure. Researchers are looking more and more into why these conditions are linked to problems that erupt the upper airways of a person with sleep apnea. It is well known of course that being overweight, smoking and abusing alcohol contribute to sleep apnea and in turn lead to a higher probability of developing heart disease and high blood pressure. It is not clear however why some people without these elements in their lifestyle still have sleep apnea. When breathing stops during a sleep apnea episode the blood shows raised carbon dioxide levels and lower oxygen levels. Consequently, a number of both physical and chemical events takes place within the body that then increases the possibility of other problems arising in the body. In individuals who suffer from sleep apnea and who are also overweight researchers have discovered that they have high levels of immune factors known as tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin. High levels of these factors can produce serious inflammation which can lead to cell damage, especially within the arteries. In one study it was found that individuals with raised tumor necrosis factor-alpha levels had excessive tiredness, shortness of breath and weak heart pumping. However it must be said that at this time no clear causal relationship has been scientifically established between sleep apnea and heart disease.A number of studies have been carried out to examine high blood pressure and sleep apnea and a connection has been found between the two. For example, a study done in 2000 looked at patients for four years and reported that the greater the number of sleep apnea episodes they experienced in the first year the greater the risk of developing hypertension by the third or fourth year. Even in those people who snored or who experienced only mild sleep apnea there was a small but nonetheless higher than normal link with high blood pressure. In the past the link between sleep apnea and high blood pressure was considered to be strongly connected to obesity. Recent studies however point to the fact hypertension is seen particularly in those people who have sleep apnea regardless of how much they weigh. Blood pressure has an effect on sleep apnea because it varies tremendously during repeated sleep apnea episodes. These fluctuations are also associated with changes in the form of sudden surges that occur within the sympathetic nervous system. This system controls involuntary muscles and especially those which take place the heart and blood vessels. It is strongly believed that as time passes these variations might play an important role in the development of permanent and long term hypertension.

Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder that occurs when a person stops breathing repeatedly while sleeping.  Sleep apnea can affect anyone at any age, including children.  Risk factors include being overweight, male gender, being over forty years of age, having a family history of sleep apnea, having a larger neck size, or having larger tonsils.  If left untreated sleep apnea could lead to hypertension, stroke, or heart problems such as a heart attack, heart failure, or irregular heart beat.  Sleep apnea can cause you to be less productive at work or school and increases your chances of having a car accident because of your sleep loss.  There are two types of sleep apnea: obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea.  Before diagnosing sleep apnea you must understand what it is.  Sleep apnea occurs when someone has completely stopped breathing for 10 seconds or more while they are sleeping.  Sometimes these apnea episodes completely wake a person, other times they just bring someone to a shallow level of sleep from a deep level.  This interrupted sleep may not be noticed by the person with the sleep apnea, instead it may alert your bed partner.  There are two types of sleep apnea: central sleep apnea and obstructive sleep apnea.  Central sleep apnea occurs when the brain doesn’t send the signal to breathe to the breathing muscles.  This is more common in people with brain injuries or heart diseases.  Obstructive sleep apnea means the airway has actually been obstructed by your tongue going backwards or enlarged tonsils.  Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder.If you have symptoms of sleep apnea your doctor may ask you to have a sleep apnea test done at a sleep disorder center.  This test would be done after a physical exam and medical history.  People who have sleep apnea in their family history are at a higher risk for sleep apnea themselves.  A sleep study (polysomnogram) is a multiple-component test that electronically transmits and records specific physical activities while you are sleeping.  In a polysomnogram an EEG is used to record brain wave activity, an EMG records such things as teeth grinding, an EOG to record eye movements which tells the sleep stage you are in, an EKG for your heart rate, a nasal airflow sensor to record airflow, and a snore microphone records your snoring activity.  All of these results are then read by a sleep specialist and given to your doctor to determine if you have sleep apnea.If you have a mild case of obstructive sleep apnea you may be able to fix the problem by doing some behavioral changes.  These changes include changing your position while sleeping; sometimes apneas occur only in a certain position which is usually lying flat on your back.  Obesity is a contributive factor to obstructive sleep apnea.  Losing 10% of your body weight would improve your sleep apnea.  Some people with sleep apnea find this hard to do because the sleep loss leaves them too tired to exercise; in turn making them gain more weight which worsens the sleep apnea.  If the apnea is treated a different way it usually leads to people being able to lose weight since they won’t be as tired.

Do you think you’re experiencing sleep apnea symptoms?  It is vital that you seriously consider all of these symptoms.  While you may not realize the dangers of sleep apnea, they do exist.  Most people don’t even know that they have this dangerous health condition.   Typically they assume that they have some other condition, are unfamiliar with sleep apnea symptoms, or simply dismiss the condition as being trivial.

The common sleep apnea symptoms deal with the lack of sleep that many sufferers experience.  When a person experiences sleep apnea or the cessation of breathing during the night, the body will wake itself up just long enough to get breathing again.  Because of the fact that most people who suffer from sleep apnea go back to sleep very quickly they have no idea that they even had a period of time that they were awake.  But this interrupts the natural sleep pattern and doesn’t allow someone to get a full, restful night’s sleep.  Fatigue during daytime hours, being drowsy or sizzy during the day, irritability, moodiness, yawning a lot, or falling asleep during unsuitable times can be a sign of sleep apnea.  A lack of sleep can also cause morning headaches and so these too are common sleep apnea symptoms.

Symptoms of sleep apnea can include extremely loud or other types of snoring, and sometimes difficulty breathing during the day.  Choking, gasping, wheezing, snorting, and sounds like these are common for those who have sleep apnea as they are actually signs that the person is trying to get oxygen.  Often these sounds are mistaken for typical snoring when they’re really not.  If you’re not sure of the sounds you make when you sleep, a simple tape recorder next to the bed can work wonders; your doctor can even review the sounds you make to see if they may be possible sleep apnea symptoms.

See a physician if you have any of these sleep apnea symptoms.  Other ways to help you breathe better while sleeping include using a humidifier and elevating your pillow.  You can get some help from a snore pillow since it cradles the head and neck which assists in keeping your breathing clear as the airway passages stay open.  But don’t ignore sleep apnea symptoms as this condition is dangerous and in extreme cases, can also be downright deadly.

If you are suffering from sleep apnea, there are several treatments for it. An obvious next step is continuous positive airway pressure. Other treatments include oral and dental devices to keep your airway open. If all else fails, surgery is an option.

To assess snoring and other symptoms of sleep apnea, have the patient run a tape recorder to record the sounds he or she makes while sleeping. Snoring related to sleep apnea differs from innocuous snoring. Benign snoring has a very monotonous, repetitive sound, but intermittent quiet periods between the loud snoring noises may be indicative of apnea.

Symptoms of apnea indicate referral to a sleep disorder clinic for complete polysomnography, because the diagnosis and classification of apnea can be made only in this setting.

Treatment of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is multifaceted. The first intervention is advice-the advice you would give anyone who wanted to control snoring:

• Lose weight (if appropriate)
• Sleep on the stomach or on a side, not on the back
• Avoid alcohol at least 3-4 hours before retiring
• Avoid pharmacologic sleep aids
• Get enough hours of sleep each night.

An overnight polysomnogram is used to confirm the diagnosis and assess severity of physiologic disturbances. Initially, simple measures, such as avoidance of alcohol and sedatives before bedtime and sleeping on the side rather than the back, may be tried. Nasal continuous positive airway pressure is considered first-line therapy, and compliance can be improved by education and counseling of the patient.

A first-line medical treatment includes use of a nasal continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) device, which supplies pressure to the upper airway and prevents the airway from collapsing while the patient is asleep. The pressure appropriate for a given patient must be determined in a sleep laboratory.

Another procedure gaining popularity is uvulopalatopharyngoplastysurgical removal of redundant tissue from the soft palate. This procedure is most often used in patients who do not respond to CPAP because of a lack of patency in the upper air-way due to trauma, infections, or allergies. Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty is beneficial in only 50% of patients.

Tracheostomy gives the most consistent long-term benefit but is accompanied by significant emotional morbidity. Tracheostomy may be required for the 5% of patients whose apnea does not respond to other therapy.

Those patients may be able to clear their airway with a prescription dental device that holds the tongue in place or repositions the jaw. But those devices may also be uncomfortable, and they work much less reliably than the mask and pump.

A more effective alternative is surgery, which widens the airway by removing any flabby or enlarged tissue, making a groove in the back of the tongue, or sliding the jaw slightly forward.

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Although vastly underdiagnosed and virtually untreated, sleep apnea can contribute to high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems and strokes. It also can be deadly.  

In one study, Stanford University researchers looked at 159 truck drivers. They found that 79 percent had sleep apnea, and many were unable to control when they fell asleep driving. In another study looking at accidents in which drivers fell asleep at the wheel, 87 percent of the drivers died, taking with them one or two other people.  

Men suffer from the condition almost three times more often than women, , in part because of anatomical differences in the upper airways. But because many women who suffer from it are post-menopausal, there is some speculation it also may be hormone-related, he said.  

The most common and severe form of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea. In many cases, it’s caused by sagging muscles at the base of the throat, enlarged tonsils, a small airway opening or a large tongue, according to the American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine. In about 20 percent of cases, being overweight is a major cause of the problem.

Obstructing the airway makes breathing labored and causes loud snoring. If there is complete blockage, the breathing stops altogether and the sleeper is briefly silent. This makes the diaphragm and chest muscles work harder; the sleeper gasps and briefly awakes as breathing is started again.

In central sleep apnea, the airway is opened but the diaphragm and chest muscles don’t work, perhaps because of a disturbance in the brain’s regulation of breathing during sleep, according to the AMA encyclopedia.

If you suspect you’re suffering from sleep apnea, talk to your doctor, who may refer you to a lab where your sleep can be monitored. Losing weight and avoiding alcohol before bedtime may help. Wearing a mask attached to an air compressor that forces oxygen into the airway is an effective treatment for severe cases. And surgery that removes excess tissue from the throat is another possibility.  

First think through what you want from the doctor and make it clear to him or her. For instance, if you go to the doctor with lower back pain and your blood pressure is high, your doctor may concentrate on treating the blood pressure because it’s potentially life-threatening. However you should make it clear the back pain is still something you want treated. Second, ask questions. Studies show patients who ask questions do better, he said.

Third, be honest about what you can and can’t do. If you can’t take your medicine four times a day, tell the doctor. Maybe he can give it to you in another form. If you can’t diet or exercise, it’s important the doctor knows this, too.

Wake up happy! Discover the proven sleep apnea treatments that guarantee a healthy and restful sleep! To grab your free report go to Best Sleep Apnea Treatments

As awareness of apnea mounts, suspected sufferers are spending their nights under an infrared camera’s watchful eye in hundreds of so-called “sleep labs” across America, sensors dotting their skin and scalp. 

Eleven o’clock is “lights out.” At 11:02 sharp, Navarro yawns. A needle swings wildly on a monitor humming softly in the next room. At 11:10 p.m., Navarro turns onto his left side, and a half-dozen needles jerk in response. 

This night will be like no other for Navarro, a 32-year-old computer programmer. For the next seven hours, his every breath, movement and heartbeat will be recorded as he spends the night in a sleep disorders laboratory. 

He is here because doctors think he suffers from sleep apnea, a disorder marked by loud snoring and interrupted breathing. Once considered relatively obscure, sleep apnea is stirring increased concern among physicians because it can cause severe daytime fatigue, high blood pressure, stroke and heart problems; serious cases can be life-threatening. 

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that sleep apnea is more common than once believed. The study found that 9% of women and 24% of men had sleep-disordered breathing; 2% of women and 4% of men in the middle-aged work force met the criteria for sleep apnea. That would make undiagnosed sleep apnea a major public health burden. 

Depending on the severity of the apnea, treatment can include use of a night time face mask or even surgery. There’s a less high-tech approach for those who snore or suffer apnea only while on their backs: sewing a tennis ball in the back of their pajamas tops so they will sleep on their sides instead.

Not surprisingly, roommates and spouses are often the first to spot potential apnea victims. Navarro is a longtime snorer; he can remember his college roommates waking him to request that he tone it down. His wife, Christine, grew worried when she noticed that he sometimes stopped breathing briefly during the night. She learned about sleep apnea from her doctor and urged her husband to get tested. 

A video screen shows Navarro dozing peacefully. Pink computer paper moves steadily through the polysomnograph, a machine with 12 needles that records everything from his eye movements to heart contractions.

All night, monitors will record the needles’ black tracks, paying special attention to those measuring Navarro’s breathing. Sleep apnea victims have been known to stop breathing hundreds of times each night.

Wake up happy! Discover the proven sleep apnea treatments that guarantee a healthy and restful sleep! To grab your free report go to Best Sleep Apnea Treatments

Sleep and sleep-related problems play a role in a large number of human disorders and affect almost every field of medicine. For example, problems like stroke and asthma attacks tend to occur more frequently during the night and early morning, perhaps due to changes in hormones, heart rate, and other characteristics associated with sleep. Sleep also affects some kinds of epilepsy in complex ways. REM sleep seems to help prevent seizures that begin in one part of the brain from spreading to other brain regions, while deep sleep may promote the spread of these seizures. Sleep deprivation also triggers seizures in people with some types of epilepsy.

Neurons that control sleep interact closely with the immune system. As anyone who has had the flu knows, infectious diseases tend to make us feel sleepy. This probably happens because cytokines, chemicals our immune systems produce while fighting an infection, are powerful sleep-inducing chemicals. Sleep may help the body conserve energy and other resources that the immune system needs to mount an attack.

Sleeping problems occur in almost all people with mental disorders, including those with depression and schizophrenia. People with depression, for example, often awaken in the early hours of the morning and find themselves unable to get back to sleep. The amount of sleep a person gets also strongly influences the symptoms of mental disorders. Sleep deprivation is an effective therapy for people with certain types of depression, while it can actually cause depression in other people. Extreme sleep deprivation can lead to a seemingly psychotic state of paranoia and hallucinations in otherwise healthy people, and disrupted sleep can trigger episodes of mania (agitation and hyperactivity) in people with manic depression.

Sleeping problems are common in many other disorders as well, including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, cancer, and head injury. These sleeping problems may arise from changes in the brain regions and neurotransmitters that control sleep, or from the drugs used to control symptoms of other disorders. In patients who are hospitalized or who receive round-the-clock care, treatment schedules or hospital routines also may disrupt sleep. The old joke about a patient being awakened by a nurse so he could take a sleeping pill contains a grain of truth. Once sleeping problems develop, they can add to a person’s impairment and cause confusion, frustration, or depression. Patients who are unable to sleep also notice pain more and may increase their requests for pain medication. Better management of sleeping problems in people who have other disorders could improve these patients’ health and quality of life.

Circadian rhythms are regular changes in mental and physical characteristics that occur in the course of a day (circadian is Latin for “around a day”). Most circadian rhythms are controlled by the body’s biological “clock.” This clock, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN, is actually a pair of pinhead-sized brain structures that together contain about 20,000 neurons. The SCN rests in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, just above the point where the optic nerves cross. Light that reaches photoreceptors in the retina (a tissue at the back of the eye) creates signals that travel along the optic nerve to the SCN.

Signals from the SCN travel to several brain regions, including the pineal gland, which responds to light-induced signals by switching off production of the hormone melatonin. The body’s level of melatonin normally increases after darkness falls, making people feel drowsy. The SCN also governs functions that are synchronized with the sleep/wake cycle, including body temperature, hormone secretion, urine production, and changes in blood pressure.

By depriving people of light and other external time cues, scientists have learned that most people’s biological clocks work on a 25-hour cycle rather than a 24-hour one. But because sunlight or other bright lights can reset the SCN, our biological cycles normally follow the 24-hour cycle of the sun, rather than our innate cycle. Circadian rhythms can be affected to some degree by almost any kind of external time cue, such as the beeping of your alarm clock, the clatter of a garbage truck, or the timing of your meals. Scientists call external time cues zeitgebers (German for “time givers”).

When travelers pass from one time zone to another, they suffer from disrupted circadian rhythms, an uncomfortable feeling known as jet lag. For instance, if you travel from California to New York, you “lose” 3 hours according to your body’s clock. You will feel tired when the alarm rings at 8 a.m. the next morning because, according to your body’s clock, it is still 5 a.m. It usually takes several days for your body’s cycles to adjust to the new time.

To reduce the effects of jet lag, some doctors try to manipulate the biological clock with a technique called light therapy. They expose people to special lights, many times brighter than ordinary household light, for several hours near the time the subjects want to wake up. This helps them reset their biological clocks and adjust to a new time zone.

Symptoms much like jet lag are common in people who work nights or who perform shift work. Because these people’s work schedules are at odds with powerful sleep-regulating cues like sunlight, they often become uncontrollably drowsy during work, and they may suffer insomnia or other problems when they try to sleep. Shift workers have an increased risk of heart problems, digestive disturbances, and emotional and mental problems, all of which may be related to their sleeping problems. The number and severity of workplace accidents also tend to increase during the night shift. Major industrial accidents attributed partly to errors made by fatigued night-shift workers include the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear power plant accidents. One study also found that medical interns working on the night shift are twice as likely as others to misinterpret hospital test records, which could endanger their patients. It may be possible to reduce shift-related fatigue by using bright lights in the workplace, minimizing shift changes, and taking scheduled naps.

Many people with total blindness experience life-long sleeping problems because their retinas are unable to detect light. These people have a kind of permanent jet lag and periodic insomnia because their circadian rhythms follow their innate cycle rather than a 24-hour one. Daily supplements of melatonin may improve night-time sleep for such patients. However, since the high doses of melatonin found in most supplements can build up in the body, long-term use of this substance may create new problems. Because the potential side effects of melatonin supplements are still largely unknown, most experts discourage melatonin use by the general public.

We typically spend more than 2 hours each night dreaming. Scientists do not know much about how or why we dream. Sigmund Freud, who greatly influenced the field of psychology, believed dreaming was a “safety valve” for unconscious desires. Only after 1953, when researchers first described REM in sleeping infants, did scientists begin to carefully study sleep and dreaming. They soon realized that the strange, illogical experiences we call dreams almost always occur during REM sleep. While most mammals and birds show signs of REM sleep, reptiles and other cold-blooded animals do not.

REM sleep begins with signals from an area at the base of the brain called the pons (see figure 2 ). These signals travel to a brain region called the thalamus, which relays them to the cerebral cortex – the outer layer of the brain that is responsible for learning, thinking, and organizing information. The pons also sends signals that shut off neurons in the spinal cord, causing temporary paralysis of the limb muscles. If something interferes with this paralysis, people will begin to physically “act out” their dreams – a rare, dangerous problem called REM sleep behavior disorder. A person dreaming about a ball game, for example, may run headlong into furniture or blindly strike someone sleeping nearby while trying to catch a ball in the dream.

REM sleep stimulates the brain regions used in learning. This may be important for normal brain development during infancy, which would explain why infants spend much more time in REM sleep than adults . Like deep sleep, REM sleep is associated with increased production of proteins. One study found that REM sleep affects learning of certain mental skills. People taught a skill and then deprived of non-REM sleep could recall what they had learned after sleeping, while people deprived of REM sleep could not.

Some scientists believe dreams are the cortex’s attempt to find meaning in the random signals that it receives during REM sleep. The cortex is the part of the brain that interprets and organizes information from the environment during consciousness. It may be that, given random signals from the pons during REM sleep, the cortex tries to interpret these signals as well, creating a “story” out of fragmented brain activity.