Often we may watch a movie about a loud snorer and laugh about all the crazy antics that can go along with that, but if your snoring is due to sleep apnea it is certainly no laughing matter.
The word apnea derives from New Latin and Greek and means breathless.' The modern definition is "The temporary absence or cessation of breathing."
Sometimes a newborn baby may suffer from infant apnea while some adults suffer from sleep apnea.
There are two kinds of this adult sleep disorder that are recognized by the medical community today. The first one is called central and the second one is called obstructive.
Central is a very rare condition and is not the topic of this article. Obstructive can be a life threatening disorder that needs to be taken care of right away.
People who suffer from sleep apnea may wake up as many as 15 times per hour during the night. In very severe cases that number jumps to 40. Their breathing gets blocked and thus they awaken in a sudden gasp for air. If left untreated it can cause high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and even death.
It has been found that almost all of the people who suffer from sleep apnea are overweight. For many years doctors have been advising their patients to lose weight if they have sleep apnea. In almost all cases if they did indeed lose weight their condition would subside.
More recently there was a study conducted and the results seem to prove this advise to be correct. If you consider the new study and the advise from doctors over the years it would seem that weight loss could be a good first step towards eliminating a case of obstructive sleep apnea.
The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers studied 264 obese adults that had both type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. They were separated into 2 groups.
Group 1 was put on a weight loss management program including exercise and portion controlled meals.
Group 2 was put on a diabetes management program that included exercise and support and encouragement from peers.
After one year people in group 1 lost an average of 24 pounds and 13.6 percent of them had their symptoms disappear.
People in group 2 only lost an average of a little more than 1 pound and their symptoms got worse.