Commercial truck accidentrs are a significant public health hazard causing thousands of deaths and injuries each year, with driver fatigue and sleepiness being major causes.
A new study has confirmed previous findings that obesity-driven testing strategies identify commercial truck drivers with a high likelihood of obstructive sleep apnea and suggests that mandating obstructive sleep apnea screenings could reduce the risk of truck crashes.
There is already a laundry list of health issues that may result from the lack of appropriate sleep — moodiness, memory problems, difficulty concentrating — add the risk of developing diabetes.
A study from the University at Buffalo shows that people who sleep less than six hours a night during the work-week are 4½ times more likely to have elevated levels of blood sugar than those who slumber six-to-eight hours.
A press release issued by the American Association of Diabetes Educators says that 94 percent of doctors in a survey the organization conducted were aware of the links between the development of type 2 diabetes in people who have obstructive sleep apnea.
Despite knowing about the link, only about 47 percent of the physicians involved in the survey actually conduct routine screenings.
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.
A study published in the July 1, 2008, issue of the journal Sleep provides visual evidence of the severe structural damage that occurs in numerous regions of the brain in people with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
Results show that obstructive sleep apnea patients have extensive alterations in “white matter,” nerve tissue in the brain containing fibers that are insulated with myelin — a white, fatty sheath. These structural changes appear both in brain regions that have functional importance for characteristics such as mood, memory, and cardiovascular regulation; and in fiber pathways interconnecting these regions.
Learn about sleep’s connection with mood, health, alertness, and performance in the workplace as well as sleep problems such as insomnia, snoring, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, narcolepsy, and excessive daytime sleepiness.
On July 9, 2007 Nancy Grace, the former prosecutor-turned-talk-show-host, made a large error that has cause an uproar in the patient sector of the sleep community. The professional sector, primarily sleep physicians and many sleep-related organizations, have remained silent.
Grace’s show was about the 2006 death of former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestler Mike Durham, saying, in her words, that sleep apnea is basically snoring, and you know, not breathing for a few seconds periodically through the night. You don`t die of sleep apnea. That is complete BS.
Humans spend about a third of our lives sleeping. Over the course of an average 70–year lifespan, that equates to about 205,000 hours.Sleep is vital in everyone’s life.
Why is it so important? Our health, happiness, and ability to succeed in life are strongly dependent on how well we meet the body’s need for rest and quality sleep. Sleep is a naturally occurring period in every 24-hour period of a human’s life, in fact. It’s during the sleep phase of our daily cycle that the body repairs itself, tests its systems, consolidates memory, purges itself of waste, and stockpiles energy for the day ahead.
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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.
