Sleep apnea is a disorder in which people experience shallow breathing or pauses in breathing during their sleep. African-Americans with moderate or severe sleep apnea are twice as likely to have hard-to-control high blood pressure when their sleep apnea goes untreated, according to a new study funded mainly by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Unfortunately, most people with obstructive sleep apnea are tired and do not have much energy for exercise This is a difficult behavioral spiral since the more tired a person is, the less they exercise , the more weight they gain, the worse the obstructive sleep apnea becomes, and the more tired they become.
Although the American Academy of Sleep Medicine advocates for physicians to ask all patients about signs and symptoms of OSA, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has no position on this issue, and there are no good outcome studies of net benefit for screening unselected populations.
The Inspire Upper Airway System (UAS) is intended for consumers with moderate to severe OSA who have specific characteristics (a Body Mass Index under 32 and the absence of complete collapse in the back of the throat) and were not helped by a CPAP device, or could not tolerate the CPAP treatment.
Mild occasional sleep apnea, such as many people experience during an upper respiratory infection , may not be significant, but chronic severe obstructive sleep apnea requires treatment to prevent low blood oxygen ( hypoxemia ), sleep deprivation , and other complications.
An estimated 1 in 4 African-Americans in the United States have moderate or severe sleep apnea, but most have not been diagnosed or treated by a doctor, according to a 2018 study led by Johnson when she worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
SIDE EFFECTS: Sleep apnea causes next day drowsiness (Bad for attention when driving to work), headaches (Really hard to concentrate with the drum corps beating behind your eyes), heart disease (Yes, it seriously affects your heart), learning & memory disorders (Good-bye new job when I can't remember my job instructions), incorrect perception of reality (Are you sure you didn't say that?) and mood disorders like depression (Very debilitating).