Snoring and Sleep Apnea

Snoring in your sleep is very common, almost everyone does it from time to time, though they would rarely admit to it, and many people snore every night. Scientists have discovered that snoring may not just be a threat to your relationship, when it is part of sleep apnea it can prove to be fatal. The word ‘apnea’ is Greek for ‘without breath’, there are three types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed, with obstructive being the most common. Sleepers with untreated sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times during the night and often for a minute or longer. This phenomenon can cause severe cardiovascular stress, some scientists believe though that they may have come up with findings that could lead to simple, effective drug treatments.

It is thought that as many as 24 percent of sleepers in North America suffer from breathing disorders while they sleep, the problem is often magnified by obesity. As well as feeling drowsy and exhausted the following day, people with sleep apnea suffer from high blood pressure and are at risk of suffering from a heart attack or stroke. It is thought that sufferers are three times more likely to die from a heart attack in their sleep than the rest of the population, these estimates are based on a study in the March 24 2005 New England Journal of Medicine.

Physiologist Nanduri R. Prabhakar, of Chase Western Reserve University says:

“The consequences of this intermittent [oxygen deprivation], if it persists for years, can be very drastic.”

Prabhakar has been wondering for many years why this oxygen deprivation cause such stresses on the cardiovascular system, considering many people live at high altitudes and do not suffer in the same way, living in a low-oxygen environment like the Himalayas without suffering from hypertension.

Prabhakar conducted experiments on rats to try and simulate the two environments; one where the subject is exposed to low levels of oxygen, and one where the subject is exposed to intermittent levels of low levels and normal levels of oxygen. After a 10-day period only the rats that were given intermittent levels of oxygen were suffering from hypertension. Prabhakar announced his results at a Novartis Foundation meeting in London, January 2005, demonstrating the most dramatic difference being in the carotid body, an oxygen-sensing tissue that is in the main artery of the neck. It is the carotid tissue’s job, when oxygen levels drop, to tell the nervous system to increase blood pressure and restore oxygen levels; when oxygen levels drop and spike repeatedly the system gets stuck in the ‘on’ position, constantly making requests for higher blood pressure.

Prabhakar believes it may be the case that free radical scavengers will be able to counter the effects of sleep apnea. He has tested a superoxide dismutase mimetic in his rats and seen a reduction in hypertension, which leads one to wonder if a simple atioxidant vitamin supplement could have the same positive results for a human. The only treatment at the moment for severe cases is a machine that forces a positive flow of air into the sufferer via a mask that must be worn throughout the night, so a pill would be very convenient by comparison.

A leading biochemist at the National University of Singapore, Barry Halliwell, does not believe antioxidants and vitamin pills are the answer and says that the best way to tackle sleep apnea is to nip it in the bud. “The antioxidants will never do as much good as would be done by controlling your cholesterol levels and losing weight.”