Sleep Apnea Increases the Risk of Heart Disease and Death

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes it’s sufferers to periodically stop or have difficulty breathing during sleep, sometimes for as long as 10 seconds.

While the biggest side-effect reported by sufferer’s of sleep apnea is fatigue, researchers of a new study have found that over time, the decreased amount of oxygen flow to vital organs can have a deadly effect. In fact, Boston University School of Medicine researcher, Daniel J. Gottlieb, found that sleep apnea increases the risk of heart disease or death by two-thirds.

His study concluded that men with a severe form of sleep apnea are 58 percent more likely to experience heart failure than those men with normal sleep patterns and 68 percent more like to develop heart disease.

Not so though, for women. Gottlieb’s study was unable to draw a connection between sleep apnea and heart disease in it’s female participants, a fact that Gottlieb attributes to the low percentage of female sleep apnea sufferers. While 24 percent of males struggle nightly with sleep apnea (sometimes awaking as many as 30 times an hour) just nine percent of women do. Gottlieb admits that more research will need to be done in this area before any conclusions can be drawn.

“Many patients don’t experience symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea,such as daytime sleepiness,” warns Gottlieb. “Or if they do, they don’t mention it during routine medical exams. It’s important for anyone who suspects they have obstructive sleep apnea to discuss it with their primary care physician.”

Mild forms of sleep apnea can be treated with simple behavioral changes (changing sleep positions, for example, or avoiding alcohol and cigarettes and losing weight).