weight and sleep apnea

Do you or a loved one snore much at night? Do you have periods during the day when you feel very tired? Do you sometimes fall asleep at afternoon meetings? If so, you may have sleep apnea. This is a potentailly dangerous disease because over time, right sided heart failure may develop. In people with sleep apnea, there are times in which the person stops breathing during the nighttime while asleep. In response to this, blood vessels going from the heart to the lungs (pulmoanry arteries) will reflexly spasm, resulting in the right ventricle needing to generate more pressure to pump blood to the lungs. Over a period of time this results in enlargement (hypertrophy) of the right ventricle which can ultimately result in heart failure. Symptomatically, the affected person has an altered sleep pattern with a constant disruption of REM sleep. This altered sleep issue causes narcolepsy and daytime somulence. The treatment for sleep apnea patients is a machine that delivers oxygen under high pressure to keep the airways open ( "CPAP"). However, a much better "treatment" is weight loss. There is a very high association between obesity and sleep apnea. With excessive soft tissue in the neck area, this will lead to the cutting off of breathing during times of the night. With weight loss, this may improve considerably. In our weight loss program, we have had people enter the program who were using a CPAP machine and in short order, were able to come off of it. Once again, another healtgh benefit of weight loss!

Sunny and 84 degrees today...time for the beach! (I am trying not to gloat)

Weight loss and sleep apnea

Over the past several weeks, I have seen several patients that have told me that their snoring at night has markedly decreased as they have lost weight. Snoring is an obvious annoyance to the person you share a bed with, but medically, this could be a sign of a potentially dangerous disease. i.e. sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea patients experience many episodes of oxygen desaturation at nighttime which can lead to serious heart disease and/or cardiac dysrhythmias. The patients will also experience significant daytime somnulence. For the patient that complains of snoring and daytime fatigue, a physician will order a sleep stuyd that demonstrates the oxygen desaturation that occurs, confirming the diagnosis of sleep apnea. A continuous positive airway pressure machine ("CPAP") is then prescribed.

Excessive soft tissue around the neck can cause this obstructive sleep apnea and weight loss can greatly improve the situation. Yet another great reason to lose weight!