Don’t lose sleep over obesity, cardiac woes
Subhayan Dutta letters@hindustantimes.com
Hindustan Times (Kolkata)
Sep 10 2015
Obesity is the start of many health problems in our lives like high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiac problems. One of these that doctors say is quite frequent, but largely ignored because of its slow impact, is Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). OSA occurs when there are repeated instances of complete or partial blockage of the upper airway while sleeping. During this, the diaphragm and chest muscles work harder to open the obstructed airway and pull air into lungs. Breathing resumes with a loud gasp, snort or jerk of the person’s body. These usually interfere with sound sleep and in some cases reduce oxygen flow to vital organs, causing irregular heart palpitations.
“This irregular breathing repeats itself several times during the night, and the next morning the person wakes up extremely tired and lethargic to face another day, despite spending sufficient hours in bed. The fact that he wakes up several times during his slumber compromises the quality of sleep. A person suffering from this ailment runs the risk of falling asleep anywhere,” Dr PS Bhattacharya, a consultant pulmonologist, said.
Bhattacharya added, “Millions are victims of this disorder but are still in the dark about it. As a result, many in the country suffer from snoring, one of the strongest symptoms of sleep apnea.”
Ever since it was first detected 10 to 15 years ago, it was mostly found among adults between the ages of 35 and 55. However, it ha now been detected among children too, Dr AG Ghoshal, a city based pulmonologist, said said.
“Nowadays sleep apnea is very common among children, although it has been found that the disorder grows worse as one grows older. If not treated, consequences can be a huge concern. Patients can develop disorders like the failure to thrive, enuresis (the inability to control one’s urine), attention- defecit disorder, behavioural problems and cardiopulmonary disease. Generally, it can make kids miss out on healthy and restful sleep, only in rare cases can it be life threatening,” Ghoshal said.
“Among kids, sleep apnea is normally caused because of enlarged tonsils or adenoids, which blocks the airway during sleep. Some other reasons can be a family history of OSA, being overweight, defects in the structures of the mouth, jaw or throat that narrow the airway, a large neck or a long tongue that can fall back and block the air passage during sleep,” Ghoshal added.
In urban India 8 to 13 per cent of males between the ages of 35 and 65 suffer from OSA. Men are three times more likely to suffer from OSA as compared to women. Incidences of OSA increase with age. The prevalence of sleep apnea among diabetics is almost 50 per cent, 77 per cent for obese individuals, and 87 per cent among obese individuals with type 2 diabetes. Studies on children and adolescents have shown that the occurrence of sleep-disordered breathing is about 2 per cent.
OSA could give rise to problems like obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart diseases and many such complications.
“Patients ailing from OSA suffer from obesity and struggle with weight loss. When there is frequent sleep disturbance throughout the night, it can affect the quality of their sleep. As a result, they feel lethargic and resort to snacks, desserts, extra caffeine shots, which give them the glucose surge to sail through the day. We know that unhealthy eating habits could lead to an increase in weight but sleep apnea and obesity are linked to each other. However, losing weight is a big struggle for OSA victims, as they don’t have the stamina needed for exercise,” said Bhattacharya.
The American College of Physicians recommends that losing just 10 per cent of one’s body weight can have a big effect on sleep apnea symptoms.
OSA patients find it hard to keep blood pressure under control, which, in the long run increases vulnerability of heart diseases and the recurring bad sleep could give rise to diabetes, Dr Surojit Chatterjee, pulmonologist of SSKM Hospital, said.
“Almost 50 per cent of diabetic patients were found to have this disorder. The inability to sleep well during the night hampers the effective control of blood glucose levels among diabetics which lead to sleep apnea. Obese diabetics should be diagnosed for sleep apnea if they are unable to manage their blood glucose levels,” Chatterjee said.
It is easy to diagnose OSA. Sleep labs were once the accepted norm for diagnosing OSA, however, spending a night at an unknown lab with wires attached at a cost of more than 15,000 is not the idea of a perfect night-out for many, Bhattacharya said….read more…
Subhayan's Web Log 