One of the most common health disorders among people around the world is “sleep apnea”. In its simplest sense ‘sleep apnea’ can be understood as one or more pauses in normal breathing. In many cases the shallow breathing during sleep is also termed as ‘sleep apnea’.

A pause in normal breathing during sleep may have an undefined duration. Meaning thereby, the pause could be for a few seconds only or it can even stretch up to few minutes.

Similarly, the rate of occurrence of such pauses during sleep may also vary up to great ranges. It could be five times per hour or even up to 30 times an hour. Normal breathing generally starts immediately after such a pause but this re-start could generate a snoring or choking sound as well.

Once a person is a victim of ‘sleep apnea’ this disorder converts in to a chronic disorder slowly over the years. In majority of the cases people never realize that the ‘sleep apnea disorder’ has crept in their lives. Read the rest of this entry

SleepApneaDisorder/ [  Press Release  ]/ Versailles, Ohio /October 17, 2011/ Sleep Apnea: A Growing Health Concern According to the National Institute  of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, an estimated 18 million Americans have  sleep apnea. However, few of them have had the problem diagnosed.

Sleep apnea is the repeated interruption of normal breathing during sleep.  Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type of breathing-related sleep disorder. In patients with OSA, the airway collapses, temporarily restricting  airflow to the lungs. This partial airway obstruction causes the upper airway  tissue to vibrate and produce the sound of the classic snore.

As OSA develops, it has a cumulative effect, meaning that the longer the  disease goes untreated, the greater the negative side effects and associated  health risks. According to numerous  research studies, if sleep apnea remains untreated, other health conditions  may emerge or current health problems may worsen, including: Read the rest of this entry

Sleep apnea is a condition that can strike in age groupand in either gender. Although the most common group are older men, children and infants are also at risk. Asthma and sleep apnea are strange bedfellows. Several studies have linked the two issues and theorize that there is a group of people with asthma and sleep apnea who are unaware of the second diagnosis.

Sleep apnea is the description of the condition where the sufferer experiences a temporary, often repeated, pause of breathing during sleep. If a person with sleep apnea has a family member that can observe them they will often witness snoring, hyper-extended head position in children, pauses in breathing and startle responses during sleep.

Other symptoms of sleep apnea include loud snoring, obesity, lack of concentration, morning headaches, excessive sleepiness during the day, frequent visits to the bathroom at night, severe mood swings, low sex drive and a general lack of energy. Read the rest of this entry

The Aviisha Medical Institute, LLC is making headway in the battle against sleep apnea as physician groups continue to join its MD Home Sleep Program at a record pace. The program equips physicians with the knowledge and tools to diagnose and treat sleep apnea without resorting to costly lab testing.

The surge in group signups has helped Aviisha, the national leader in home sleep testing, reach more sleep apnea patients than ever before. “We’re seeing a remarkable number of patients getting treated thanks to the collective effort of our physicians,” said Dr. Avi Ishaaya, the cofounder and Medical Director of Aviisha. “Only 10-20% of sufferers are diagnosed despite the fact that untreated sleep apnea has such devastating health consequences.” Sleep apnea has been linked to increased risk of stroke, diabetes, heart failure, hypertension, obesity, sexual dysfunctional, depression, loss of motivation, and chronic fatigue.”

The groups come from a variety of states and comprise numerous specialties.

Aviisha’s MD Home Sleep Program Read the rest of this entry

The diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders have come a long way in recent years. In the past, people who snored might be advised to sew a tennis ball onto the back of their pajama top. The “snore ball” would discourage them from sleeping on their back and might quiet their droning. Or a doctor might use the “dog index” to measure poor sleep: If your dog generally sleeps with you but by morning has left the bed more than half the time, it may be because you’re such a loud, restless sleeper that the dog has gone elsewhere for some peace and quiet.

How things have changed. Now, doctors with special training diagnose and treat more than 80 sleep disorders – from obstructive sleep apnea to narcolepsy – at special centers with labs where a patient’s every sleeping moment may be recorded and measured. Read the rest of this entry

Childhood obesity in North Carolina is at 33.5% according to the  National Conference of State Legislatures. Raleigh  weight loss problems mount as the state will pay $2.138 billion in annual  medical costs of obesity.

One in three children are overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has  increased over 300% in the past 30 years according to the CDC (Center for  Disease Control). Obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5%  in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008. Obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years  increased from 5.0% to 18.1% during the same time period.

The risk factors for obesity in children and adolescents are cardiovascular  disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure. To make matters worse, they are  at greater risk for bone and joint problems, sleep apnea and poor self-esteem.  Overweight and obese children are more likely to be overweight or obese in their  adult years. This increases their chances of developing heart disease, type 2  diabetes, stroke, cancer and osteoarthritis.

Knowing these facts; would one ever say to your overweight or obese child,  Sweetie, let’s go get some cheeseburgers, fries and a milk shake so later in  life it can result in a heart attack.

Men with erectile dysfunction (ED) should be tested for the presence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to researchers here at the American Urological Association (AUA) 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting.

The findings are from a study that examined the link between ED and OSA in 870 middle-aged men who were consecutively enrolled in the ongoing Law Enforcement Cardiac Screening Program, which is part of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program.

“The study is the largest to date to demonstrate an independent association between ED and OSA after controlling for known cardiovascular risk factors,” principal investigator Boback Berookhim, MD, MBA, urology resident at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, said. Read the rest of this entry

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 45 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, a disorder that causes a person to briefly and repeatedly stop breathing during sleep. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a debilitating, often life-threatening sleep disorder an estimated 800 thousand patients are being diagnosed with OSA per year in the USA and approximately 10% being treated.According to Jim Boyle a Registered Respiratory Therapist and Sleep Disorder Specialist with 20 years clinical experience has treated hundreds of OSA suffers and is the genesis behind NuLungs.com. People with untreated sleep apnea are more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure and Type II diabetes. Boyle founded the Company to offer a convenient and cost effective alternative to diagnosing and treating sleep apnea patients. Read the rest of this entry

Inspire Medical Systems, the leading developer of neurostimulation therapies for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), announced today The STAR trial (Stimulation Therapy for Apnea Reduction), evaluating both the safety and effectiveness of Inspire™ Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) therapy, is currently underway at 9 leading medical centers across the United States and at 4 sites in Europe. In addition, several OSA patients have already been implanted with Inspire therapy in The STAR trial. Read the rest of this entry

A new computer screening tool developed and patented by a UB physician is helping to detect severe obstructive sleep apnea in cardiovascular patients who have not yet been diagnosed with this common and potentially dangerous condition.

The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, is being conducted by a UB researcher at the Veterans Affairs Western New York Healthcare System.

The goal is to evaluate how well the computer screening tool developed at UB diagnoses sleep apnea in patients with heart disease, compared to an overnight sleep study, or polysomnography, considered the ‘gold standard’ for diagnosing sleep apnea.

“The importance of this grant is that it may give us a faster way to screen for sleep apnea in patients who are already at high risk but who are undiagnosed,” says principal investigator Ali A. El Solh, professor of medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and professor of social and preventive medicine, School of Public Health and Health Professions. Read the rest of this entry

SleepApneaDisorder/[ Press Release]/ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania / Childhood obesity in Pennsylvania is at 29.7% according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Pennsylvania weight loss problems mount as the state will pay $4.138 billion in annual medical costs of obesity.

One in three children are overweight or obese. If one’s child is overweight or obese, would they give them HCG weight loss? BMI (Body Mass Index) greater than 30 = obesity.

Childhood obesity has increased over 300% in the past 30 years according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control). Obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008. Obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0% to 18.1% during the same time period. Read the rest of this entry

SeptRx,an emerging medical device company that is developing the SeptRx® Intrapocket PFO Occluder (IPO)—a platform for the percutaneous transcatheter closure of a heart defect known as patent foramen ovale (PFO)—announced today that the company has received $2.7 million in a ‘Series A’ financing led by NDC (Nitinol Devices & Components) Inc. The cash infusion is intended to “carry us through CE mark registration,” said Scott Russell, President and CEO of SeptRx.

The SeptRx® Intrapocket PFO Occluder has already completed a successful 11-patient first-in-human (FIH) clinical trial. SeptRx’s FIH trial was the first and only PFO device trial to demonstrate 100% closure and 100% safety (out to 3 years). A larger European clinical trial is nearly underway: InterSEPT (In-tunnel SeptRx European PFO Trial), from which data will be used to apply for CE marking. The trial will be conducted at two investigation sites: Frankfurt, Germany, and Massy,France. Read the rest of this entry

A 2007 Sleep in America poll showed that 60% of women are tired during the day. Sleepiness can be divided into three problem areas: not getting enough sleep (quantity); not getting enough good sleep (quality); and shift-work disruptions in sleep (circadian rhythm abnormalities).

“Women are sleepy because we work very hard, and we work a lot,” Fadness explained. Women work an average of 41.7 hours per week (compared with 48.8 hours for men), but when you add in the work they do around the home the total comes to 65 to 85 hours per week.

Lifestyle causes

“We are getting so much less sleep than we were 100 years ago,” said Fadness. This can be attributed to snoring spouses, children, job stress and domesticated animals. Read the rest of this entry

Obesity remains a major problem in the Coastal Bend, a troubling statistic because of its association with sleep apnea , type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke, a regional health study found.

Nearly two-thirds of the 500 people surveyed were overweight or obese, a statistic that did not surprise health care and social service providers interviewed for the study, according to the 2010 Coastal Bend Community Health Needs Assessment.

The providers said the most frequent condition they saw in the past year was obesity and overweight patients, according to the study. Read the rest of this entry