The Hidden Consequences of Sleep Apnea

Drowsiness. Headaches. Mood-swings. The daytime symptoms of sleep apnea are enough to frustrate anyone, but people who aren’t aware of their condition, or who have had these symptoms for a long time, might write them off as a nuisance. “Part of getting older,” they imagine.

True, a patient with moderate sleep apnea and a strong will could shrug off the short-term effects of a bad night’s rest, but people who opt to ‘tough it out’ are overlooking something very important. Simply put, the daytime symptoms of sleep apnea are just the tip of the iceberg.

In addition to the persistent fatigue, pain, and irritability suffered by people with sleep apnea, there is a suit of health problems that emerge if the problem is left untreated. Because your body relies so much on sleep to regenerate itself, failure to get good rest due to sleep apnea can lead to weight gain, cardiovascular problems, and even a heightened risk for neurological disorders such as dementia. How do all of these things happen? Let’s take a closer look.

Weight Gain

It’s well known that being overweight can put you at risk for having sleep apnea. In fact, one of the best predictors of sleep apnea is a neck size over 17.5 inches. However, the restlessness and poor sleep caused by sleep apnea itself has been strongly linked to weight gain. This occurs because healthy sleep is important in regulating a number of hormones. Specifically, the hormones ghrelin, leptin, and insulin.

Ghrelin is one of the hormones that regulates your appetite, and it also plays a role in determining how much of the food you eat is converted into energy or stored in the body as fat. People who have sleep apnea are much more likely to have high levels of grehlin, meaning that they experience more cravings for food despite not necessarily needing any. This is accompanied by an associated loss in the production of leptin, a hormone that works to produce feelings of satiety and fullness, and insulin, which allows you to process glucose in an effective manner.

The net result of these changes is a subjective experience of being very hungry and low on energy even if a person is more than sufficiently fed. What’s worse, these imbalances are compounded by weight gain, since people who are overweight tend to develop a resistance to leptin and insulin, resulting in a net increase in cravings and a desire for food and a less efficiency in processing glucose. This can lead to even more weight gain and worse sleep apnea!

Cardiovascular Disease

In addition to the weight gain and metabolic problems induced by sleep apnea, the untreated condition also paves the way to hypertension and cardiovascular disease. This comes about not only through the increased weight gain that accompanies sleep apnea, but because the lack of oxygen received throughout the night triggers a number of stress responses in the body. Blood vessels “tighten” and the heart works harder to pump the less oxygenated blood more quickly throughout the body.

Unfortunately, many of these factors persist after the apnea sufferer awakens, leading to an overall rise in blood pressure and a drop in cardiovascular health. Coupled with the metabolic problems above, it’s easy to see how long-term, untreated sleep apnea can contribute to poor heart health and cardiovascular diseases.

Neurodegenerative Disease

The hormones that regulate appetite and metabolism don’t just work with food; they play important roles in the brain as well. Ghrelin, for example, performs important functions that deal with memory and learning, and so long-term hormonal dysfunctions can have serious consequences for the brain. The same goes for the night-time hypertension and cardiovascular issues. Numerous studies link sleep apnea to the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, and stroke, and a big culprit in each of these is the hypertension that occurs when the body is left deprived of oxygen.

There are many other mechanisms of sleep apnea that allow these problems to emerge, but researchers agree that the disruptions caused by this disease strongly correlate with other, more dangerous complications. With this in mind, treatment of sleep apnea becomes more than a matter of restoring day-to-day comfort. It becomes a necessary process that dramatically reduces the risk of many preventable, life-threatening illnesses.

If you or somebody you know suffers from sleep apnea, or is presenting the common daytime symptoms of sleep apnea, don’t wait until it’s too late. Seek a professional sleep evaluation and find treatment that will alleviate the symptoms of sleep apnea and help break the cycle of health problems that it brings. And remember, even if you don’t have access to a medical professional right away, there are a number of things you can do to control symptoms on your own, such as sleeping upright, using an oral appliance, and keeping your airways uncongested.

Whatever you do, just don’t let sleep apnea stick around!

 

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