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[C72]Can Sleep Apnea Cause Death

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How can sleep apnea cause death? Death can result directly from apneic events or indirectly from health issues adversely affected by the sleep apnea. Death can also result from accidents that are due to exhaustion from sleep apnea.

Oxygen is needed for cells to survive. Oxygen enters the body by respirations. Respirations are voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary is when you consciously control a function. Involuntary is when a body function is automatic. You can stop yourself from breathing, but only until you pass out, then your autonomic system takes over and tells the body to breathe. When sleeping, we automatically breathe.

Oxygen intake is interrupted in the patient who suffers from sleep apnea. Sometimes the apnea is caused by a short circuit in the brain. The autonomic system isn't being told to keep the body breathing.

Other times the apnea is caused by an obstruction of the tongue or collapse of the airway. If air doesn't enter the lungs, oxygen cannot be extracted and after about 4 minutes cells will begin to die. If enough cells die, the body will not be able to compensate and it will result in death.

Hundreds of short breathing cessations each night harms the body. Oxygen saturations drop over and over again while carbon dioxide builds up. This puts stress on the heart.

The heart will enlarge over time if the sleep apnea is allowed to go on untreated. Blood vessels constrict causing high blood pressure. Sometimes it will also result in a stroke if too much pressure causes a vessel to burst. If the bleeding from the stroke cannot be controlled, it will also result in death.

How else can sleep apnea cause death? Lack of sleep causes our bodies chemicals to become out of whack. People suffering from sleep apnea live continuously with off balance chemicals that never get a chance to regulate, therefore sleep deprived people often suffer from depression. This depression can lead to suicidal thoughts.

Impaired judgment and slow reaction times can cause accidental deaths from automobile crashes or falls. Sleepiness and inappropriately falling asleep has resulted in fires and accidental CO poisoning.

There have been athletes, actors, authors, and other famous people who have died due to sleep apnea. the most recent and well known is Reggie White, a NFL Hall-of-Famer who died at 43 years of age from an arrhythmia caused by sleep apnea.

So can sleep apnea cause death? Certainly. Can a person with sleep apnea prevent death? Definitely. Early diagnosis, proper treatment, and treatment compliance is crucial for saving your own life.

Copyright (c) 2008 Jonni Good

Adults can end up with a form of this problem too, except this time it is in the form of a sleep disorder called sleep apnea. Those who are not aware of this sleep disorder might, upon finding out more about it, think that it is something that only a few people suffer from. However, sleep apnea is something that millions of people get in their lifetime.

So, what exactly is sleep apnea? It is a sleep disorder in which a person stops breathing for a minute at a time, or sometimes more. Now, take a moment to consider this situation. Pretend that you are swimming underwater. How long can you hold your breath? The average human can hold their breath for about a minute and a half.

When a person with sleep apnea stops breathing for that time, the body can usually recover from it since it was just a minute. However, some people with this sleep disorder stop breathing for even longer periods of time, which obviously can lead to severe health problems.

The human body can survive without oxygen for about fifteen minutes before it goes into complete cardiac arrest. However, that does not mean that the brain can function well after such an episode. Unfortunately, many people who have this sleep disorder do not actually have any idea that they have it until they get a real health scare.

How can you tell if you have this problem? Well first, check out the overall sleep disorder situation in your own family, because this condition is often genetic. Another thing that you can do is pay attention to your overall cognitive abilities. If you feel rested everyday, but are having trouble remembering things and feel lightheaded, you will want to check with your doctor.

Obviously, if you think that you might be suffering from this condition, you want to know how this condition is diagnosed in first place. Well, in order to really be certain, you will have to participate in a sleep study. You will have to, in essence, spend a night in a controlled medical setting where you can be closely monitored.

Another thing that you might want to know is what causes this sleep disorder in the first place. Well, there are a number of different causes, but the most prevalent is obesity. When an obese person lies down to go to sleep at night, the excess weight really puts a lot of direct pressure on the heart and respiratory system. In an effort to avoid significant strain, the respiratory system will try to "rest" itself.

When it comes to the different kinds of treatments for this problem, the first thing that will be recommended to obese people is that they lose weight. This could actually make all the difference for them in a variety of different ways.

Article Source : Sleep Apnea Effects

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