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cardiovascular diseases
Nov
22
2008
This entry was posted by admin on Saturday, November 22, 2008 at 2:21 pm (UTC), and is categorically filed in Heart health, Top News.
Sleeping less than seven and a half hours per day may be associated with future risk of heart disease, according to a report in the November 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, a combination of little sleep and overnight elevated blood pressure appears to be associated with an increased risk of the disease.
“Reflecting changing lifestyles, people are sleeping less in modern societies,” according to background information in the article. Getting adequate sleep is essential to preventing health conditions such as obesity and diabetes as well as several risk factors for cardiovascular disease including sleep-disordered breathing and night-time high blood pressure.
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People with even minimally symptomatic obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease because of impaired endothelial function and increased arterial stiffness, according to a study from the Oxford Centre for Respiratory Medicine in the United Kingdom.
“It was previously known that people with OSA severe enough to affect their daytime alertness and manifest in other ways are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but this finding suggests that many more people — some of whom may be completely unaware that they even have OSA — are at risk than previously thought,” said lead author of the study, Malcolm Kohler, M.D.
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Repetitive blockages of the airway, called obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), can reduce airflow or cause breathing to stop. When this happens, frequent brief awakenings can leave a person feeling excessively sleepy during the day, even though they believe they have had a full night’s sleep. More serious consequences, including obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes — are often related to OSA.
Primary care physicians must be able to recognize symptoms of OSA and counsel their patients to provide optimal treatment.
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Aug
22
2008
This entry was posted by admin on Friday, August 22, 2008 at 9:55 am (UTC), and is categorically filed in Teens and Sleep, Top News.
Teenagers are notorious for having bad sleep habits. New research suggests that having trouble staying awake the next day might not be the only consequence they face.
This study, the first study to look at the relationship between not getting enough sleep and blood pressure in healthy adolescents, researchers found that healthy teens (ages 13 to 16 years old) who slept less than 6½ hours a night were 2½ times more likely to have elevated blood pressure compared to those who slept longer.
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Interesting Apnea Statistics
~~ Apnea in United States ~~
As of May 2, 2009 at 9:47 p.m. (-0500) (ET), the U.S. population
was 306,340,710. Sleep researchers estimate approximately seven percent
of the population suffers from obstructive sleep apnea. Using that
estimate, there are potentially 21,443,850 apneics in the U.S.
~~ Apnea around the world ~~
As of May 2, 2009 at 9:47 p.m. (-0500) (ET), the world population
was 6,777,286,604. Sleep researchers estimate approximately seven percent
of the population suffers from obstructive sleep apnea. Using that
estimate, there are potentially 474,410,062 apneics in the world.
