Can you afford to ignore Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)?

A recent study by researchers in Britain, Advises you not to.

According to the researchers at the University of Birmingham Center for Cardiovascular Sciences in Birmingham, England -- A nightly breathing treatment for those with obstructive sleep apnea might also help prevent heart failure.

How the Study was conducted:

According to Dr. Gregory Y. H. Lip the head researcher,

the researchers took 40 patients with moderate to severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and compared the results from this group with those obtained from 40 people with high blood pressure and 40 healthy people.

The researchers said that the people with severe obstructive sleep apnea patients had abnormal cardiac structure and performance changes typically associated with chronic high blood pressure, even when their blood pressure was only moderately elevated.

That apart, the cardiac abnormalities in these Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea often remain undetected.

What is suggested?

The researchers suggested that the situation among people with severe Obstructive Sleep Disorder is markedly improved with continuous positive air pressure, With Patients, further need to understand that obstructive sleep apnea is not a benign disorder, but that their risk of heart problems can be easily treated with continuous positive air pressure -- a device used to help get better sleep.

The findings were published in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure.

NOTE: Sleep apnea (or sleep apnoea in British English) is a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing, during sleep. In short, it can said sudden difficulty in breathing during sleep. Each pause in breathing, called an apnea, can last from a few seconds to minutes, and may occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Similarly, each abnormally low breathing event is called a hypopnea. Sleep apnea is diagnosed with an overnight sleep test called a polysomnogram, or "sleep study".

There are three forms of sleep apnea: central Sleep Apnea (CSA), obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), and complex or mixed sleep apnea (i.e., a combination of central and obstructive) constituting 0.4%, 84% and 15% of cases respectively.

In CSA, most common of all types, breathing is interrupted by a lack of respiratory effort; in OSA, breathing is interrupted by a physical block to airflow despite respiratory effort, and snoring is common.

As a rule of thumb, to know whether you have a sleep apnea, just see this: If you sleep well, in a slightly sitting pose, so that your head and neck remains vertical; then you may have Severe Sleep Apnea. If you snore, then you may have Sleep Apnea. Consult a doctor for diagnosis.


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