Risk factor for sleep disorder: aging
Age—along with its gifts of wisdom and emotional maturity—also brings you sleep problems.
You can be perfectly healthy and think you're sleeping just fine. But this may lead you to overlook the fact that you could be having multiple respiratory disturbances every night. While they don't yet qualify as obstructive sleep apnea, they should be taken seriously.
A new study is highlighting the fact that you might not be getting the sweetest dreams possible. There were 163 people enrolled who were given physical and clinical assessments to gauge their health. The researchers wanted to work with the healthiest individuals possible for the purposes of the study.
But despite the participants' "healthy" status, there were a surprising number of sleep-related breathing irregularities among the group—especially in the older members. Almost 50 percent of participants over age 65 experienced 15 events per hour on a respiratory disturbance index, compared with only 5 percent of folks under the age of 50.
As in most disease processes, sleep-related issues have a progression to them. And that's what concerns researchers. Even though you're healthy, these increasingly frequent sleep-disturbance events could, over time, erode your overall health.
The research group recommends getting treatment regardless of the severity of your symptoms.
But how do you get diagnosed, if you aren't even aware of the symptoms?
I talked at length about sleep apnea in the November issue of Health Revelations. (Subscribers can access the issue archives at my website, www.healthrevelations.com) I covered the gamut on this topic, ranging from obtaining that elusive diagnosis to the health threats of untreated sleep apnea.
The long and short of it is, sleep apnea can put you at increased risk for heart attack, a stroke, high blood pressure, and for a few individuals—sudden death due to respiratory failure.
One of the biggest clues that you may be suffering from sleep apnea is a feeling of just not being rested, even after what you think is a full night of sleep. Talk to your doctor about it and ask him if there's a sleep center where you can be properly diagnosed for any sleep problems. He may need to refer you to a sleep specialist.
