The sound of any possible disturbance in the normal sllep during nights could be a very common symptom of sleep apnea.

The sleep apnea disorder has been established to be closely linked with excessive daytime sleepiness, heart disease, even strokes, now being diagnosed in a growing number of military veterans.

The veterans administration says about 20% of all vets suffer from sleep apnea and according to statistics released to The USA Today Newspaper, the number of vets receiving benefits to treat the sleep apnea disorder jumped 61 percent between 2008 and this year. Read the rest of this entry

If you have the disorder, you’re not breathing properly while you sleep because your airflow is blocked repeatedly throughout the night. Nearly one in four men and one in ten women suffer from it. (There are a couple of other varieties, but OSA is the most common.) And it goes hand-in-hand with type 2 diabetes. In a survey on the subject, Gary D. Foster, PhD, wrote that, “among all of the sleep disorders, OSA has the strongest association with type 2 diabetes.”  That’s even taking into account other risk factors, such as weight, sex and age.

The main risk factor for OSA is obesity. “Excess weight deposits extra fat around the thorax, reducing chest compliance and functional capacity, while increasing oxygen demand,” wrote Foster, a professor of medicine and public health and the Director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University. Read the rest of this entry