Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is a serious disorder that causes your breathing to stop repeatedly while you sleep. Several factors can influence the AHI value derived from PSG recordings.1,7-9 For example, the technology used to assess airflow has evolved from reliance on oronasal thermistor technology to addition of the nasal pressure signal, which is more sensitive for detection of mild reductions in airflow.7 The current prevalence estimates for OSA are derived from studies that used thermistor technology only.10,11 Addition of nasal pressure analysis would likely increase detection of respiratory events and thus OSA prevalence.
After menopause, hormones change and women tend to start looking like men in terms of where the weight gets put on. It's a time to be paying attention to the risks of ENT doctor because women begin to catch up to men in the rates of apnea after menopause,” Jun says.

This study identifies a risk factor for hard-to-control hypertension that until now has gone underrecognized in African-Americans,” said study leader Dayna Johnson, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta.
The Jackson Heart Study is supported and conducted in collaboration with Jackson State University (HHSN268201300049C and HHSN268201300050C), Tougaloo College (HHSN268201300048C), and the University of Mississippi Medical Center (HHSN268201300046C and HHSN268201300047C) contracts NHLBI and the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities.

In patients with obstructive sleep apnea, continuous positive airway pressure lowers blood pressure and rates of arrhythmia and stroke, improves left ventricular ejection fraction in patients with heart failure, and reduces fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events.
These are episodes characterized by mild upper airway narrowing during sleep, with increased respiratory effort required to maintain a slightly reduced level of airflow not large enough to be scored as hypopnea.4 When the increased inspiratory effort required to maintain ventilation is associated with a microarousal, a RERA is scored (Fig.

In fact, studies have shown that parapharyngeal fat pad volume is greater in obese subjects developing apnea than in nonobese subjects developing apnea ( 1 - 4 ). Moreover, nonobese subjects developing apnea have larger parapharyngeal fat pads than normal subjects ( 1 ). However, it is not just the parapharyngeal fat pads that are enlarged in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.