If you suffer from sleep apnea, it may be doing more than causing you to feel sleepy during the day, it may be affecting your heart health.

OSA or obstructive sleep apnea causes a person to repeatedly stop breathing during the night, disturbing sleep. Recent studies link sleep apnea with cardiovascular disease.

Sleep apnea is associated with a 45% higher risk of hypertension. In addition, sleep deprivation is linked to weight gain and diabetes, which are risk factors for heart disease.

Ralph Downey III, PhD, of the Sleep Disorders Center at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California explains:

“It makes not only scientific sense that such a relationship exists, but common sense as well,” said Downey. “If someone were to suffocate you with a pillow several hundred times a night, you would call the police. In the case of patients with sleep apnea, the airway blocks off due to obstruction and they stop breathing for 10 seconds to a minute, which is repeated hundreds of times in a night. The body, in essence, is being assaulted by the damage done from intermittent lack of oxygen to the heart, brain and other important organ systems, and yet such an assault goes unreported. That is, patients who have these symptoms don’t always have their sleep apnea corrected. Perhaps in the light of a metaphor such as the one of being assaulted by our own sleep disorder, people would take more care of their sleep. Their hearts will thank them.”

Medical News Today

American Academy of Sleep Medicine