Poll Re: Apnea and Your Weight

[palerider]

well, if you can't be bothered to read what someone says when they disagree with you, then perhaps nobody else should read past the first sentence when you write your argumentative and dismissive posts.

One more example of poor critical thinking skills, suggesting that it's wrong to be dismissive of ridiculous statements.

oh, no, you see, you're the one with poor thinking skills, because I'm saying that we should ignore your ridiculous statements (which is most of them) just like you proudly proclaim that you're ignoring what others write when they don't happen to agree with you.

there, one sentence for you

[Julie]

[Heart Jumping]

Yes weight has something to do with OSA but not what you believe it to be.

Another mind reader who is going to insist what I "believe it to be".

So you initiate a poll, but then you start explaining how everyone taking the poll is stupid?

Never said anything remotely close to that either, in fact I'm thankful to those who answered. Your comment is what is referred to as a strawman, an absurd misrepresentation of what I said. So yes, you also need to learn critical thinking skills, it will help you to learn not to make these types of ridiculous arguments.

[Julie]

You know, in all this time you've spent so much of it saying that what everyone else is saying is not what you meant, but if your argument (or post) was so clear in the beginning this wouldn't have happened, so here's your chance to state it again, clearly, without ref. to links or other stuff, but just as you see it...

So... ?

[Heart Jumping]

You know, in all this time you've spent so much of it saying that what everyone else is saying is not what you meant, but if your argument (or post) was so clear in the beginning this wouldn't have happened, so here's your chance to state it again, clearly, without ref. to links or other stuff, but just as you see it...

So... ?

I'm sorry Julie, but I actually went out of my way to clarify that I was not saying "being overweight causes apnea". However asking me to clarify further what I do believe is entirely fair, and I'd have been happy to do it since the beginning, if someone had actually asked . Since you have, I'll respond in a while, heading out for a moment...

Thanks

[Heart Jumping]

Julie,

To answer your question here is what I believe - being overweight does not "cause apnea" in an absolute sense any more than being overweight "causes cancer". Thinking that would be to make the mistake often referred to as the fallacy of the single cause (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_o ... ngle_cause). However being overweight can be a contributing factor, that increases an individuals risk of developing apnea. This seems to be overwhelmingly supported by current research. For instance:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021364/

Obesity is considered a major risk factor for the development and progression of OSA.8,19,20,27,28 The prevalence of OSA in obese or severely obese patients is nearly twice that of normal-weight adults.....It is possible that obesity may worsen OSA because of fat deposition at specific sites. Fat deposition in the tissues surrounding the upper airway appears to result in a smaller lumen and increased collapsibility of the upper airway, predisposing to apnea

And research also suggests that apnea can be a contributing factor for obesity:

However, the relationship between OSA and obesity is complex. Although there is compelling evidence showing that obesity, as well as visceral obesity, may predispose to OSA, and that losing weight results in OSA improvement, recent studies suggest that OSA may itself cause weight gain

It is humorous that a few people have angrily declared that "being overweight does not cause apnea", yet turn around and state "apnea does cause being overweight". Both are contributing factors and it's not terribly uncommon for causal relationships to work in a circular direction. It's one of the most common questions that comes up in studies, for instance people with depression are more likely to have sleep problems and people with sleep problems are more likely to have depression. Sometimes scientists are able to determine the causal relationship is more strong in one direction, sometimes not.

My purpose in running this poll was curiosity, to see what the distribution was like here on the forum, nothing more. You know what made me curious? The fact that I think I have apnea, so I'm researching everything I can about it. Hmm....I wonder if apnea causes curiosity?

[Julie]

How old are those studies you linked? Even 5 yrs ago they didn't understand that apnea is the likeliest cause of obesity, not the other way around. So stop pushing the out of date idea! Yes many people with apnea are obese, but you've got the chicken before the egg.

[tiredandscared]

Heart jumper. They're dead set on obesity having nothing to do with sleep apnea. It's a point less discussion. Each to his own I suppose. If you have excess weight, try to lose it and see whether it resolves your sleep apnea. In the mean time try to get treatment so that your sleep apnea doesn't cause additional issues.

[Morbius]

...apnea is the likeliest cause of obesity...

Caloric intake in excess of energy expenditure is the cause of obesity.

[HoseCrusher]

And here I thought fat had more to do with the type of calories taken in...

A biological problem as opposed to the physics problem of input versus output...


I wonder why so many restrictive calorie diets fail...? Could it be that they are focusing on the physics side rather than addressing the biological side...?

[Morbius]

I wonder why so many restrictive calorie diets fail...?

Overestimation of energy expenditure and/or underestimation of caloric intake.

[Heart Jumping]

Heart jumper. They're dead set on obesity having nothing to do with sleep apnea. It's a point less discussion. Each to his own I suppose.

Yep, motivated reasoning at it's finest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning I had assumed people on an apnea forum would be dedicated to being informed about their disease, but as is so often the case some people reject facts when they threaten the view they want to have.

If you have excess weight, try to lose it and see whether it resolves your sleep apnea. In the mean time try to get treatment so that your sleep apnea doesn't cause additional issues.

Thanks for the advice! I'm doing exactly that.

[gasp]

Warning - soap box coming out . . .

So using weight may be a good general guideline for a mainstream medical application, but it is the worst possible way to judge if one is fat or not.

For example, a person can stay the same weight from their twenties to eighties and be twice as fat when 80 as the person living a normal to sedentary lifestyle lost a good deal of their muscle and replaced it with fat.

I'd love to see mainstream medical use percentage of body fat versus scale weight.

I build using heavy weights and have a lot of dense muscle. After weighing at the doctors, they wrote "over weight" in my chart. At the time, I was 16% body fat measured by Idexa scan! Most female college athletes aren't that low. I'm 21% now as I backed off on training for a year, and would still be called fat by a doctor, just because of the scale.

Even using a wildly inaccurate averaging +/- 10% Tanita body fat scale is better than just pounds.

[palerider]

I build using heavy weights and have a lot of dense muscle. After weighing at the doctors, they wrote "over weight" in my chart. At the time, I was 16% body fat measured by Idexa scan! Most female college athletes aren't that low. I'm 21% now as I backed off on training for a year, and would still be called fat by a doctor, just because of the scale.

Even using a wildly inaccurate averaging +/- 10% Tanita body fat scale is better than just pounds.

so true, waist/height ratio is a much better indicator.

[tiredandscared]

Warning - soap box coming out . . .

So using weight may be a good general guideline for a mainstream medical application, but it is the worst possible way to judge if one is fat or not.

For example, a person can stay the same weight from their twenties to eighties and be twice as fat when 80 as the person living a normal to sedentary lifestyle lost a good deal of their muscle and replaced it with fat.

I'd love to see mainstream medical use percentage of body fat versus scale weight.

I build using heavy weights and have a lot of dense muscle. After weighing at the doctors, they wrote "over weight" in my chart. At the time, I was 16% body fat measured by Idexa scan! Most female college athletes aren't that low. I'm 21% now as I backed off on training for a year, and would still be called fat by a doctor, just because of the scale.

Even using a wildly inaccurate averaging +/- 10% Tanita body fat scale is better than just pounds.

OSA is common in strongmen and body builders actually. They have the same risk as obese people as they tend to build musculature around their necks. Lots of professionally competing strongmen died from heart related complications.


https://www.sleepapnea.com/blog/post/67 ... on-link-by .

18% of all american fotboll players. Thats almost 2.60 x as much as the general population. In sumo wrestlers it was 11/27. Thats 40% and their bmi tends to be between 36 to 44.