Sleep apnea affects millions of men in the United States. This sleeping disorder causes you to stop breathing frequently multiple times per night. Untreated sleep apnea can lead to serious health disorders including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and it even can impact the health of your brain. Many men tend to shy away from doctor visits that they don’t feel are necessary, but the severity of the effects of sleep apnea are nothing to ignore. It’s important to speak to your doctor if you or a loved one thinks you may be suffering from this sleeping disorder so you can begin treatment immediately.

How to Tell If You Have Sleep Apnea

Many men who are diagnosed with sleep apnea aren’t necessarily aware that they have the condition. Most often, the signs are noticed by the spouse or another family member. Excessive snoring while sleeping on your back is a good indication that you may have sleep apnea. As you sleep, your airway relaxes and becomes partially or completely blocked. This can cause the excessive snoring as well as waking up feeling like you are gasping for air. Daytime indications that you may have sleep apnea include daytime fatigue, difficulty concentrating on tasks, and poor memory.

If you are exhibiting these symptoms it’s a good idea to speak with your physician about testing and treatment options to prevent your condition from worsening or creating other health concerns.

How Sleep Apnea Affects the Brain

The VA Pacific Islands Health Care System recently provided research that shows that men with sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, are at risk of developing issues with their brain that can lead to dementia. Older men who suffer from sleep apnea regularly have lower amounts of oxygen in their blood. This essentially is starving the brain of the oxygen that it needs to function. Those who suffer from sleep apnea are four times as likely to develop microfarcts, small injuries to their brain tissue. These tiny injuries to your brain can worsen over time if the sleeping disorder goes untreated and they create a higher risk for problems down the road such as dementia.

Sleep apnea also negatively impacts the heart and your blood pressure. High blood pressure can cause changes in the small blood vessels in your brain. Worsening blood flow, in conjunction with having low blood oxygen levels is a recipe for disaster for your brain.

The brain is also impacted from the sleep deprivation that results from not getting adequate rest due to sleep apnea. Damage to neurons can contribute greatly to memory loss and other conditions. Those who suffer from the sleeping disorder are shown to have a greater difficulty converting short term memories into long term memories. They also have problems consolidating memories and storing them to be accessed later. This results in impaired memory function.

Researchers at UCLA compared different areas of the brain between several adults, including those who suffer from sleep apnea. Research shows that the mammillary bodies in the brain that are used in memory storage were an astonishing 20% smaller than in those who do not suffer from the disorder. Studies have also shown a decline in both gray and white matter in those who suffer from sleep apnea.

Repairing the Damage Done by Sleep Apnea

While the thought of a sleeping disorder having such a devastating impact on your brain is horrifying, there is some good news for those who suffer from the disorder. Sleep apnea is treatable. If you are exhibiting symptoms it’s important that you make an appointment with your doctor to discuss your concerns. They’ll likely have you undergo a sleep study to confirm if you have sleep apnea or any other type of sleep disorder.

From there, your doctor will go over treatment options and lifestyle changes that can help reduce or eliminate your sleep apnea. One popular treatment method involves a CPAP machine. This machine is hooked to a mask that fits over your nose and mouth as you sleep. It uses a steady stream of constant air pressure to help keep your airway open, effectively ending your sleep apnea episodes.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine evaluated the impact that treatment had on the brains of those who had been suffering from sleep apnea. They found that after about a year of treatment the brain matter of the patients was almost completely restored. Gray matter in the brain showed improvement after only three months.

Don’t put off speaking to your doctor about sleep apnea. This disorder can easily be treated to improve your quality of life. The long term affects if left untreated are devastating for not only you, but your family as well.

If you have any questions about sleep apnea, please contact Mark Levy DDS at (614) 777-7350