In many people's minds, sleeping and snoring are normal, and they ignore it. The "obstructive sleep apnea" suggested by snoring can greatly increase the incidence of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and arrhythmias (such as atrial fibrillation), and it also affects the therapeutic effect of these diseases.Take hypertensive patients as an example. Some patients have taken three antihypertensive drugs and still cannot reduce their blood pressure to the normal range. For these patients, the doctor will recommend them to monitor sleep breathing and intervene in the treatment of "snoring", which can improve the control of hypertension, especially for night-time hypertension and early morning hypertension. At the same time, it can reduce the occurrence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events and kidney disease in patients with hypertension.

Half of those with severe snoring have high blood pressure

Most people only know that snoring affects other people's sleep, but they don't know much about the hazards of snoring to their health. Occasional and slight snoring has little effect on the human body. Severe snoring not only snoring loudly, but also stops breathing when snoring, and will pause breathing for ten seconds or even dozens of seconds. If there are more than 5 apneas per hour of sleep, and symptoms such as daytime sleepiness and night awakeness, it is sleep apnea syndrome (commonly known as "snoring"). Snorers have frequent apneas during sleep, and are accompanied by repeated hypoxia of varying degrees, which makes people feel headache, dizziness, fatigue and weakness after getting up. In severe cases, they can fall asleep while driving, eating and talking, resulting in accidental casualties. It also happens from time to time.

In recent years, the hazards of snoring to cardiovascular health have attracted more and more attention. If people often suffer from apnea during sleep, it will cause intermittent hypoxemia, carbon dioxide retention, and increased intrathoracic pressure fluctuations. This recurring arousal can cause abnormal sleep structures and can cause autonomic nervous system disorders. Sympathetic activation and inflammatory reactions further lead to vascular endothelial function damage, blood hypercoagulability, and endocrine and metabolic abnormalities. At the same time, it will cause excessive fluctuations in blood pressure and heart rate during sleep, which will induce a variety of cardiovascular diseases and even sudden death.

According to statistics, 50% of patients with obstructive sleep apnea have hypertension. 30%-50% of patients with coronary heart disease have obstructive sleep apnea. In addition, more than 30% of patients with pulmonary hypertension, arrhythmia, and heart failure have sleep apnea.

Ignoring snoring, blood pressure is uncontrollable

Obstructive sleep apnea will not only increase the incidence of the above-mentioned cardiovascular diseases, but also affect the treatment effect of the above-mentioned diseases and the prognosis of patients with cardiovascular diseases.

Taking hypertension as an example, there are currently six types of drugs for the treatment of hypertension. Doctors will choose one to three of these drugs according to the patient’s condition. Most patients with hypertension can control their blood pressure within the normal range after taking the drug. If you take three or more antihypertensive drugs and still cannot control your blood pressure, it is called "refractory hypertension" (also called refractory hypertension). More than 80% of patients with intractable hypertension have obstructive sleep apnea. For these patients, if there is snoring during sleep, the doctor recommends sleep breathing monitoring. If obstructive sleep apnea is diagnosed, lifestyle intervention and corresponding treatment should be given.

According to clinical observations, hypertension patients with obstructive sleep apnea can improve their blood pressure to a certain extent through active intervention (such as using a home ventilator for positive pressure ventilation at night), especially nocturnal hypertension will be benign decline. More importantly, the risk of adverse cardiovascular events (such as sudden death and myocardial infarction) at night is also reduced.

Weight loss, breathing training can improve snoring

In addition to patients with intractable hypertension, diabetic patients with recurrent angina pectoris at night, arrhythmia after falling asleep, uncontrollable heart failure, and high blood sugar fluctuations, it is necessary to perform sleep breathing monitoring to screen whether they have severe sleep breathing time out. In addition, elderly men and women after menopause; tonsil hypertrophy, tongue hypertrophy; stubby neck, small jaw, obesity, especially abdominal obesity; long-term smoking, drinking, taking sedative and hypnotic drugs, such as those with cardiovascular diseases can also be considered for sleep monitoring, to understand the snoring and apnea after falling asleep, sleep quality, hypoxia, and ECG and EEG conditions, etc., to determine the severity of sleep apnea syndrome.

How to intervene if there is obstructive sleep apnea?
Treatment should be based on different causes (such as tonsil hypertrophy, nasal septum deviation, nasal polyps, etc.), different severity, and personalized treatment options, including weight control, lifestyle improvement, respiratory muscle training, smoking cessation and alcohol restriction, There are many ways to adjust the sleeping posture, wear a non-invasive sleep ventilator or oral appliance during sleep, and reconstruct the upper airway through surgery. (The article comes from the Internet, if there is any infringement, please contact to delete it!)

Tips

Try these tips to improve snoring

1、Studies have shown that a 10% weight loss will reduce apnea by 26%. Therefore, obese people should strengthen exercise and lose weight.

2、Those with snoring symptoms should avoid alcohol and smoking. Smoking can aggravate the respiratory symptoms, and drinking alcohol will relax the pharynx and nasal cavity, leading to breathing disorders at night.