Sleep Apnea and Pregnancy

Women who have sleep apnea face a greater risk of health problems during pregnancy. New studies have emerged linking sleep apnea with various health problems such as preeclampsia, a very dangerous condition of high blood pressure during pregnancy. Women who experience preeclampsia will more likely give birth by ceasarian section rather than normally. In a new study led by author Dr. Judette Louis, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South Florida, the risk for preeclampsia reportedly doubles for women who are obese. The research team gave a portable home-sleep testing device to 175 obese pregnant women. The device showed that 15% of the women had sleep apnea, and that these women were more overweight and had chronic high blood pressure as compared to those who tested negative for sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea puts not only the mother’s life at risk, but also that of her baby. The same study analyzed more than 150 live births by women with sleep apnea and found that babies born to these mothers were more likely to be admitted into the neonatal intensive care unit due to respiratory distress.

Another scary health problem which can arise during pregnancy is gestational diabetes. Research shows that women who have sleep apnea face a greater risk for gestational diabetes and the risk doubles when the woman is obese.

Aside from obesity, another reason pregnant women may be at risk for sleep apnea is due to the many hormonal changes that the body undergoes during pregnancy. Weight gain and hormonal imbalance may all contribute to difficulty in breathing.

With all this information at hand, it has become more important than ever to screen pregnant women for sleep apnea to protect mother and baby. 

Sleep Apnea Increases the Risk of Cancer

Recent studies have revealed an association between the severity of sleep apnea and an increase in cancer mortality. In addition, more studies have suggested increasing cancer incidence among sleep apnea patients and that the spread of cancer is associated with sleep apnea. We already knew that sleep apnea is associated with a myriad of other complications like heart disease. But the fact that there’s now a link between this sleep disorder and cancer, one of the most infamous utterances, really packs a punch.

In the first study, more than 5,600 patients from seven sleep clinics in Spain were observed to examine the connection between sleep apnea and cancer mortality. Researchers used the hypoxaemia index to measure the severity of sleep apnea. This index measures the amount of times that a person experiences low levels of oxygen in the blood during the night. (Less than ninety percent oxygen saturation is considered to be low.) The results were unmistakably startling. The subjects who had approximately double the relative risk of cancer mortality were patients with severe sleep apnea. These subjects spent more than fourteen percent of their sleep with low levels of oxygen in the blood.

Interestingly enough, there is a higher association in men and younger people. Another important piece of information to add is that patients who didn’t consistently use their CPAP device—the gold standard of treatment that offers continuous positive airway pressure to help breathe during sleep—had an increased relative risk (odds ratio 2.56) of death from cancer.

In the second study, the findings depicted an increase in all-type cancer incidence in people with severe sleep apnea. Even more startling was the fact that this association stood even when usually-determining factors such as age, sex, weight and other co-morbidities of participants were controlled for.

In a third study, researchers used a mouse model of the skin cancer melanoma to examine tumor spread (metastasis) and to discover if this was associated with sleep apnea. Researchers found that the metastasis was more abundant in mice that intermittently breathed hypoxic air with low levels of oxygen—which is comparable to the effects of sleep apnea—compared to those who breathed normal air during the experiment.

It’s important to note that these findings only prove an association between sleep apnea and cancer—it does not prove that sleep apnea causes cancer. Nonetheless, this discovery brings us one step closer to beating cancer—and we are once again shown how serious and severe the effects of sleep apnea can be to our health and wellbeing.

 

Sleep Apnea Does Not Discriminate

We’ve all heard of the dark and scary tales of sleep apnea. It’s a sleep disorder that comes with baggage like snoring and daytime sleepiness. It’s heartbreakingly linked to cardiovascular disease. And it’s a problem primarily in males. We hate to say it, but these tales are about to get even scarier…

A new Swedish study suggests that sleep apnea isn’t just the men’s problem—women have to worry about it too. Although it’s true that not very many epidemiological studies have been conducted in women, and that the frequency of sleep apnea in women is still uncertain, it should be well understood that sleep apnea is not picky when it comes to its victims.

Dr. Karl A. Franklin of Umea University Hospital in Sweden understands this crucial fact. He and his team of researchers conducted a study dealing with 400 women from a population-based random sample of 10,000 women. These women’s ages ranged from twenty to seventy years old. These 400 women answered a questionnaire and were monitored overnight. The results stipulated that half of the subjects were found to have obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA. Even more alarming, fourteen percent of those 200 women had a severe form of OSA. Franklin and his team’s findings prove one very significant thing: sleep apnea does not discriminate between genders.

We say that these findings are significant because sleep apnea isn’t just a simple sleep disorder. No, sleep apnea is known to go hand in hand with a lot more worse things. People with sleep apnea are 2.5 times more likely to report having diabetes. Sleep apnea victims are 1.8 times more likely to report hypertension. Heart disease reports are 2.2 times more likely to come from those with sleep apnea. Even mood disorders are linked to this sleep disorder; People with sleep apnea are 2.2 times more likely to report a mood disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder, mania, and dysthymia. And these statistics are compared to those who do not have to deal with sleep apnea every night.

Alcohol and OSA

Alcohol is quite often used as a quick way to feel drowsy thus making sleep easier. Although alcohol may shorten the time it takes to fall asleep, it also disrupts the second half of the sleep period. If one drinks consistently before bed the initial effects of drowsiness may begin to wear off. After a night of drinking you wake up the next morning groggy because of a combination of the lack of a good nights sleep and the lingering effects of the alcohol.

The reason why alcohol can be very detrimental to a person with OSA is because alcohol causes the muscles to relax. Which makes the passage of air that much narrower. Making it that much more difficult to breathe at night for a patient with OSA.

If an alcoholic is diagnosed with OSA, many doctors will advise their patients to kick the habit because it has a direct effect on the disorder. Although drinking every now and then won’t really harm you, a lot of alcohol can be very detrimental to your health.

The 5 Things You Should Know About Sleep

A few days ago, I posted 5 questions on what you should know about sleep and sleep disorders. Because of the importance of the topic here are my thoughts on those questions:

1). Accidents caused by drivers falling asleep behind the wheel are mainly attributable to MEN-young men who are in the 25 years or younger bracket. Driving while drowsy is a significant problem and may be caused by not getting enough sleep during night time. (if you answered “True” to this question, then think again.

2). Home Sleep Testing is NOT the “silver bullet” that can get you off the hook for a Lab-based Sleep Study. While Home Sleep Testing offers you the convenience and a cost-effective way to diagnose any symptoms of a sleep disorder, it is not for everyone.  This option is available for only a percentage of those who manifest sleep disorder symptoms. (Back to your thinking caps if you answered “True”)

3). Little or No sleep CAN cause hypertension. Normally, sleeping causes your diastolic pressure to drop (the time when your heart is at rest), but interruptions to your sleep or no sleep causes your heart to work harder, increasing pressure. (“False” answers are wrong).

4). Little or No sleep can impair your body’s ability to use insulin, which can lead to Type 2 Diabetes or Diabetes Mellitus when your pancreas can no longer produce enough insulin for you. (“False” answers are again wrong)

5). Sleep is actually an on-going or “work” in progress. Even though your body metabolism  slows and your body does gets some rest, there is some brain activity that increases dramatically. In REM sleep, a lot of parts of our brain remain as active as they are even when you are still awake. The brain is “re-energized” when you sleep, not to mention the greater amount of hormones that are produced by your endocrine system during deep sleep. (“False” is actually the correct answer)

It is best that you consult with your physician on what your best options are if you are really interested to know about whether you have a sleep disorder or not.

www.n2sleep.com

A Happy Marriage = Happy Sleep

Are you a happily married woman?  If so, research shows that you are more likely to have a better quality of sleep than other women.  Sleep is very important to a woman’s health and function.  Women should have seven to eight hours of quality sleep each night.  However, for some women, many factors, including marriage strife, stress, hormone changes, and depression, can contribute to sleep problems.  Women may have trouble falling asleep and remaining asleep or they may wake up too early in the morning.

Researchers have already demonstrated that divorced women tend to have more sleep problems than married women.  To find out more about the sleep quality of married women, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh surveyed a large number of married women with an average age of 46.  They found that happily married women slept better than unhappily married women, but only for Caucasian women in the study.  Why this is true for just Caucasian women and not women of minority groups in the study is not known, but sets a premise for future research.

If you are a woman, married or unmarried, and have difficulty sleeping, talk to your doctor about your concerns.  There are many solutions for poor sleep, and your doctor is happy to recommend treatments and lifestyle changes that can help you.

www.n2sleep.com