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A Guide to Sleep Apnea and Heart Disease


The issue of sleep apnea and heart disease is one which is very important to take into consideration, especially considering the significant rise in both ailments which has taken place over the past few years. The connection between sleep apnea and heart disease is one which has truly only been recognized over the past decade or so, but is now actually considered as being one of the most monumental findings in health science of the century.

What is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea occurs when a person actually stops breathing at points during their sleep, and it is a common disorder which can be incredibly serious.

The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea, and during sleep what happens is that not enough air flow can get to your lungs through your mouth and nose even though you try to breathe, and when that happens the amount of oxygen in your blood may drop, and normal breaths then start again, typically with a loud snort or choking sound.

The Connection Between Sleep Apnea and Heart Disease

The connection between sleep apnea and heart disease is that sleep apnea is now considered as being one of the most major underlying causes of heart disease. It is believed that there is a strong association between obstructive sleep apnea and hypertension, heart failure, stroke and ischemic heart disease. As well, recent research has shown that obstructive sleep apnea patients who have normal blood pressure run a risk of developing high blood pressure within four years.

Sleep apnea patients have been found to have much higher levels of sympathetic nervous system activity during both wake and sleep than a matched set of control patients without obstructive sleep apnea. These sleep apnea patients are also known to have much faster heart rates than non-apnea patients, but at the same time they tend to have less variability in their heart rates overall.

Basically how this works is that as sleep apnea patients stop breathing during their sleep, their oxygen levels end up decreasing and their carbon dioxide levels correspondingly increase. This results in activating the sympathetic nervous system, and so when the apnea patient breathes in, their cardiac output increases while their blood pressure spikes greatly. This is seriously problematic because it results in disrupting the normal nighttime regulation of blood pressure and the sympathetic nervous system.

The issue of sleep apnea and heart disease is being extensively worked on, in order to come to better and more detailed results, and this is really the only way that any positive solutions will be able to come out of this. There are so many causes of heart disease as it is, and so reducing this number is the best way to attack the problem of heart disease in general.

For instance, since infants are usually unable to coordinate sucking and swallowing before 34 weeks gestation, they thus will most likely have a feeding tube placed into their stomach and in very premature infants, the feedings may have to be done through a vein. If the medication does not seem to be working for the patient or if their condition deteriorates, they will probably discuss the possibility of surgery with their doctor. High cholesterol can be incredibly dangerous, and in particular it can cause atherosclerosis, or a hardening of the arteries, which in turn can lead to blocked coronary arteries, manifested by chest pain, or a heart attack. Thus, it is hardly surprising that based on the heart disease statistics that show it as being a major cause of heart fatalities, there is much ongoing research on the subject of coronary heart disease and other heart problems. Knowing the causes of coronary heart disease can help you in taking preventive measures that include lessening the level of cholesterol in your body, keeping to a proper body weight and also eating healthy foods, and finally regularly exercising.