What Is Sleep Apnea? How Is The Condition Linked To Weight Gain Or Loss?

You have ignored snoring as just another distressing ‘reality of life’ that you and your bed partner have to live with. However, with time, this sleeping disorder has worsened and now your doctor has diagnosed it as sleep apnea – about which you have a vague idea but not too sure what it is and what its consequences are.

Your doctor has also advised you to lose weight quickly, as sleep apnea and weight loss have close links. Chances are that such information has confused you further, because you cannot co-relate sleep apnea to your body weight.

Interestingly, not only is sleep apnea closely linked to weight loss, but researchers have established new links between sleep apnea and weight gain also! Be that as it may, you need to under stand what sleep apnea is, before you can fathom how increase or reduction in body weight can be linked to the way you sleep and snore.

What is sleep apnea?

As you might have experienced already, sleep apnea is one of the most nagging and unsettling sleeping disorders characterized by intermittent pauses in breathing, lasting for a few seconds to a few minutes. Such pauses could recur 5 to 30 times in an hour during the time the patient is sleeping and anyone suffering from chronic sleep apnea could go through such nights 3 to 4 times in a week.

Sleep apnea could be a treacherous condition in the sense that it remains undiagnosed for a long time. Since the breathlessness occurs during sleeping hours, even the patient is unaware of such developments and it usually takes the bed partner to notice the symptoms first.

Of the several types of sleep apnea, Obstructive Sleep Apnea or OSA is the most common, caused by complete blockage or collapse of the upper respiratory airway while the patient is sleeping.

What is sleep apnea? Its link with weight loss

Your next point of concern is how sleep apnea and weight loss are inter-related. To understand this, you have to appreciate that one of the primary causes for sleep apnea is excess body weight. In fact, being overweight does not necessarily mean that you carry extra pounds around your waist, thighs, etc. It also means that there is fat accumulation on your throat and neck muscles too. This can cause serious breathing problems and unless you lose weight around these areas, your sleep apnea condition could worsen with time.

In fact weight loss and sleep apnea are so important that it is the starting point of any mode of therapy to treat the condition. Without weight loss, sleep apnea could soon result in several health conditions, many of which are fatal like, heart attacks, Ischemic heart disease, etc.

Sleep apnea and weight gain: how close is this link?

The link between sleep apnea and weight gain has been established by researchers with the following rationale:

• Sleep apnea causes serious disturbances in sleep. This prevents the patient from getting any deep or restorative sleep, which in turn has a direct link to weight gain.
• Sleep apnea usually raises and reduces the levels of hormones like Grehlin and Leptim respectively. While Grehlin enhances appetite, Leptim reduces hunger. Both these result in increased food consumption and subsequently help in weight gain.

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