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Sleep Apnea & Menstrual Cramps

Here's a recent study that suggests that menstrual cramping may predispose to brain structure changes.

It's more likely that brain structure changes can predispose women to menstrual cramps. Interestingly, untreated obstructive sleep apnea has been shown to result in lowered brain tissue volume and density in critical areas such as memory, executive function, and autonomic control. So it's not surprising that many women with problem menstrual cramps can't sleep on their backs, and are more tired than normal, since they can't sleep efficiently. Due to smaller jaw structures, the tongue can take up relatively more space in the throat, and can obstruct during deep stages of sleep, especially when muscles begin to relax.

Snoring: Not So Benign

Here's a study that confirms that snoring should always be taken seriously: Researchers showed that snoring children had lower IQ/test scores compares with children that didn't snore. Not too surprising, knowing what we know about snoring. 

Even if you don't have obstructive sleep apnea, snoring is a sign that you're partially obstructed, and in most cases many people who snore initially go on to develop obstructive sleep apnea many years later. In young children with very actively developing brains, any disruption in sleep quality can disrupt proper brain functioning. 

I overheard one sleep researcher a few years ago saying that after tonsillectomy, cognitive and behavioral scores improve dramatically, but never catch up to that of children who didn't need tonsillectomy.

So why should snoring be taken so seriously?

We know that in drivers, snoring alone without having formal obstructive sleep apnea significantly increases your risk of car accidents. Vibrations that come from snoring is thought to alter the sensory nerve endings of the soft palate, somehow damaging the protective reflexes that help to keep the upper airway open. Vibrations from snoring are also found to cause carotid artery wall thickening in rabbits. Damage to the chemical receptors from additional reflux can also aggravate this vicious cycle. These type of studies go on and on. 

What all these studies point to is the fact that snoring is on a continuum of sleep-breathing disturbances of which all humans are susceptible. While not all snorers will have obstructive sleep apnea, it's important to look for complications of snoring, as well as to prevent progression later on into true sleep apnea. 

How many of your friends or family members snore?

Brain Injury And Obstructive Sleep Apnea

 

I recently came across a study what showed that people who suffer from strokes have much more difficulty recovering brain function if they have obstructive sleep apnea. This makes total sense. Once you have brain damage of any type, having chronic hypoxia and blood stagnation can definitely prevent proper healing. This study assumed that only some people who have strokes have obstructive sleep apnea, but numerous studies show that the vast majority of stoke patients have undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea. We also know that having obstructive sleep apnea significantly increases your chances of having a stroke by up to 300%. 

With recent increased awareness of traumatic brain injury in football players as well as in returning war veterans, it's important to at least screen for undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea with both of these groups for people, early, rather than after the damage is done. Knowing that about 1/4 of all men will have at least mild sleep apnea, looking for and treating an underling sleep apnea condition can improve recovery after any form of brain injury, not to mention prevention of further brain injury and impairment. 

What years of do think about my theory? Is it plausible, or am I just over-hyping sleep apnea?

Sleep Apnea Causes Brain Damage

A new study in the journal Sleep revealed that using special MRI imaging techniques, untreated sleep apnea patients have significantly decreased concentrations of gray matter in certain predictable areas of the brain. This means that the density of neurons is much lower than normal. The average AHI was 52, and on initial inspection of the MRI, there were no obvious structural abnormalities, with no differences in the total volume. However, gray matter density was significantly lower for sleep apnea patients in various areas of the brain that serves important functions such as memory, breathing, cardiovascular function, and autonomic function.

This study complements a prior study that showed that OSA patients have multiple dysfunctional areas of the brain.

I think the implications of this study along with various other similar studies are profound. What this means is that if you have obstructive sleep apnea, you can literally kill off certain parts of  your brain, that preferentially control your memory, executive function, your breathing patterns, and even your your heart rate. Could this be an alternate explanation for central sleep apnea? Maybe this is also why not all patients that use CPAP feel significantly better—perhaps the damage is irreversible. What's frightening is that you can suffer permanent brain damage long before your sleep apnea is even picked up and treated. 

Take a look at the abstract and read the paper if possible. What do you think about these findings? Please enter your opinions in the text box below.

Sleep Apnea Can Cause Brain Damage

A recent review of the literature in the Journal of the American Dental Association concluded that episodes of hypoxia (low oxygen levels) due to sleep-breathing problems can lead to permanent brain damage, and can even occur in early childhood. These findings are not too surprising, with a number of studies in recent years that support this finding. What’s troubling, however, is that no one is making the possible connection between brain injury due to sleep apnea and other well known neurologic conditions such as ADHD and Alzheimer’s.

Numerous studies have shown that sleep apnea patients have more areas of injured or dead brain tissue than patients without sleep apnea. This can occur in the gray and white matter (which serve memory and cognition), and even in the lower areas that control breathing, sensation and movement. One sleep researcher at a meeting that I went to many years ago stated that in young children who undergo tonsillectomies for obstructive sleep apnea, they catch up pretty dramatically in terms of cognition, memory, reaction times and intelligence scores. But they never catch up fully with age matched control children that don’t have obstructive sleep apnea. What this implies is that there may be a slight, but permanent brain injury.

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