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What
are some of the warnings being published about Snoring and Sleep
apnea:
Herald
Sun Wed 16th June 2004.
HEALTH WATCH page 28. Dr John Reid, Swinburn
University's Brain Sciences Institute.
There's more to being sleepy
than just not sleeping.
WAKE UP SLEEPY
HEAD!
Under new Victorian laws
(Australia) announced last week, drivers who fall asleep at the
wheel and cause a fatal crash face up to 20 years
jail.
Drowsy drivers were
previously only able to be charged with dangerous driving, with a
2
year maximum
term.
Vic Roads estimates up
to 25 per cent of all road accidents are linked to
sleepiness.
Causes include among
other situations such as Shift work etc. Snoring and effect on
Partners of Snorers, Sleep Disorders such as Sleep
Apnea.
Sleep
Disorders are a serious medical condition.
A possible risk factor for high blood
pressure
Staff Mayo Clinic
If you have sleep apnoea — a
potentially serious disorder in which your breathing repeatedly
stops and starts during sleep — your problems could go beyond the
loud snoring and other nocturnal noises that are often associated
with this disorder.
You could be at greater risk
of high blood pressure (hypertension) and its associated risks of
heart attack and stroke.
It's estimated that up to
half of those with sleep apnoea also have high blood pressure, and
your risk of developing hypertension within four years may as much
as triple if you have obstructive sleep apnoea, says Sheldon Sheps,
M.D., emeritus professor of medicine and former chair of the
Division of Hypertension in the Department of Internal Medicine at
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
Preliminary research
indicates there may be a link between the two. Fortunately, you can
take steps to reduce or eliminate both disorders.
It's apparent that many of
those who have sleep apnoea — about 50 percent — have high blood
pressure.
Middle-aged men with
obstructive sleep apnoea also may be five times more likely than
those without this condition to develop heart disease.
And those who have central
sleep apnoea may have an increased risk of developing an impaired
pumping action of the heart, a potentially dangerous heart rhythm
abnormality.
However, it's unknown whether
sleep apnea actually causes these conditions, or results from the
fact that those who are more prone to them — the overweight and
sedentary — are also more likely to develop sleep apnea.
A study published in the
August 2000 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that
people who snore loudly — in the absence of other risk factors for
sleep-disordered breathing, such as obesity — are 1½ times more
likely than others to have highblood pressure.
Some research suggests a
possible explanation: These breathing stoppages seem to damage the
endothelial cells that line blood vessel walls and help regulate
blood pressure by causing vessels to expand (dilate).
……………………………………………………………………………
Study links snoring to hypertension April
11, 2000
Web posted at: 4:14 p.m. EDT (2014 GMT) From
staff reports NEW YORK (CNN) --
Snoring may contribute to
high-blood pressure, according to a new study.
Researchers studied sleep and
cardiovascular information on 6,132 people who were at least 40
years old. Suspension of breathing -- often while snoring --
induces stress, and stress increases the risk of hypertension,
researchers said.
Doctors at the Johns Hopkins
School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore and other
participants in the study found that the risk of high-blood
pressure increased with the severity of the apnoea, or suspension
of breathing.
"We found that
there's evidence of sleep apnea and high-blood pressure both in
younger and older individuals, both in men and women, and both in
white, African Americans and native Americans and other
groups," said Dr. F. Javier Nieto of Johns
Hopkins.
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