About Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea, a life-threatening disorder causes a person to stop breathing while sleeping. For some, breathing stops hundreds of times in a single night. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is marked by obstruction of the upper airway during sleep. This causes pauses or breaks in a person’s breathing, preventing air from entering the lungs and forcing the person to wake briefly to start breathing again before falling back to sleep. The person with OSA is usually unaware of this. The interruption to breathing can happen hundreds of times a night, resulting in markedly fragmented sleep. As a result, people with OSA feel excessively sleepy during the day.

Individuals with excessive sleepiness suffer from drowsiness, reduced concentration and an overwhelming desire to sleep when they need to be awake. This leads to changes in mood and personality and a general reduction in quality of life. Approximately 20 percent of people suffer from OSA in the U.S. That’s more than 60 million people, giving the condition a similar prevalence to Type 1 diabetes and doubles that of severe asthma.

Snoring at night, headaches in the morning and daytime exhaustion characterize sleep apnea. Left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, impotence and death.

It can afflict all age groups, men and women alike, and is equally prevalent among all races. An estimated 60 million Americans have sleep apnea, and approximately 38,000 people die annually from complications caused by it.

As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it is estimated that one in five adults in the United States suffers from mild obstructive sleep apnea. One in 15 adults in the United States suffers from moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea. Consider these statistics:

• Almost half of all people with obstructive sleep apnea develop high blood pressure (hypertension), which raises the risk of heart failure and stroke.1
• People suffering from obstructive sleep apnea are up to 6 times more likely to be involved in a car crash as a result of drowsiness than those without sleep disorders.
• The partner of an obstructive sleep apnea sufferer loses about an hour of sleep every night due to his or her partner’s snoring.
• Sleep deprivation has been shown to alter hormones and metabolism involved in weight gain.
• Memory dysfunction can be associated with sleep apnea, as short term memory is transferred to long term memory during sleep.
• Teeth grinding (bruxism), tooth decay and loss of teeth are commonly associated with sleep apnea and snoring.
• Increased gastric acidity and chronic nasal congestion are also common symptoms.

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