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Obstructive
Sleep Apnea - The Not-So-Silent Assassin
By Dr. Rick Donald
Obstructive
Sleep Apnea (or O.S.A. for short) is about as bad as it gets.
People may joke about it, but O.S.A. is certainly no laughing
matter because it can kill you. And according to the Mayo
Clinic, up to 1 in 4 Americans suffer from this deadly health
concern. Now this is a really worrying statistic to say the
least.
Unfortunately O.S.A. sufferers can be totally unaware of their
condition until their sleeping partner or someone who sleeps
within ear shot tells them. If this sounds like you, the only
indicator that you may notice is feeling tired all the time
during the day.
So what exactly is O.S.A.? It refers to a breathing complication
where breathing totally stops during sleep for a period of
20 seconds or more. You can experience up to 300 of these
apniac events each night. They severely reduce your body's
ability to oxygenate your blood, forcing your heart to pump
harder than it should to maintain equilibrium.
Prolonged nightly apniac events can then cause an enlargement
of your heart, with the probability of associated cardio-vascular
disorders such as high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke
and irregular heart beat.
And what causes O.S.A.? It usually occurs when your tongue,
uvula and/or soft palate collapse into the back of your throat
when you sleep, blocking your airways so you can't breathe.
As your airways narrow even further, you start to snore loudly,
then your body violently gasps for air as breathing totally
stops, and your nightly dice with death continues as the cycle
repeats itself. No wonder O.S.A. sufferers wake feeling absolutely
exhausted!
Most at risk are unfit, middle aged, overweight males who
have a thick neck and fat wad around their diaphragm. They
often have a family history of the condition and may have
a sluggish thyroid. This is not to say that if you don't fit
into this category that you can't suffer O.S.A., so even if,
for example, you are a thin female you can still be a victim.
And there is even a complication of Sleep Apnea where you
suffer frequent apniac events but don't snore, but this is
not the more common presentation. If this occurs, it can be
an indicator of nerve transmission problems from your brain
to your respiratory muscles and not one of your respiratory
structures overly relaxing and then blocking your airways
as mentioned earlier.
Now the good news is that O.S.A. is a manageable condition.
If you feel that you do suffer from this worrying health concern,
have it checked out first to determine if you need to use
a CPAP breathing machine, then look at your dietary and lifestyle
choices before you waste time and money on any other stop
snoring treatments.
It's important here to always remember that you are what you
eat. Whilst it's unlikely that dietary and lifestyle changes
will totally cure your O.S.A., they certainly have the power
to overcome some of the contributing factors that may be causing
or worsening your Sleep Apnea so that its incidence and frequency
reduces.
Dr Rick Donald is a well respected Australian Clinical Nutritionist
whose latest book, 'Essential Stop Snoring Secrets', has recently
been released on the web. To find out more information about
this book, any other of Dr Rick's books and publications or
his stop snoring program, visit http://www.stopmysnoringnow.com/stop_snoring.html
Dr Rick Donald © Melbourne 2008 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This
document may be copied but only if it is used in its entirety
without modification and only if an appropriate reference
is made to the author.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr_Rick_Donald
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