The underlying causes of sleep apnea

I think some people will want hear this. I was watching this seminar by a professor in neurophysiology with a specialization in sleep disorders, yesterday. She had done research on the physical causes behind sleep apnea. Basically her study team had done biopsys on muscle tissue from the throat in three groups. A control group without problems and two respective groups of chronic snorers and sleep apnea sufferers. Since other factors like obesity and heredity and diet did not explain the etiology completely, they were looking for more fundamental problems within the throat.

As it turns out the study found nerve damage and muscular abnormalities in the 2 latter groups. The defect causes imbalances in the muscle fibers and partial atrophy, causing the tissue to collapse. Basically some of the critical muscle fibers are reduced in size and working capacity, while the surviving healthy fibers have to compensate by overworking, causing hyperthropy. Basically sleep apnea is an adaptation to neuro-muscular injury.

People with chronic snoring(without the clinical complications of sleep apnea) are already predisposed to developing it later in life even without a family history of sleep apnea, as chronic snoring itself accelerates and damages the muscle tissue in the throat over time. It basically adds to the nerve injury itself.
As chronic snorers age(aging also causes degenerative age-related changes in the throat muscles) and get fatter they develop sleep apnea. I think her findings are plausible. As my own experience with my family members who do have SDB the pattern match. My father already was snoring, when he was young and thin as a rake. He developed sleep apnea after he become older and put on weight.

In a smaller subset of sleep apnea patients, the sleep apnea is caused by fatty tissue accumulating in the soft palate, compromising and adding load to the throat muscles, causing a functional impairment. Those are the people who can lose weight and get rid of the problem as the cause is extrinsic rather than intrinsic.

I think this will help in prevention and screening in the future. Anyone who snores should get it looked at, even if they don't SDB it, they can prevent the clinical complications that occur in the future. What does offer hope is that it's reversible in the future, as some research suggests that nerve damage can be reversed with stemcells.

Do you have a link to the seminar assuming it was online? I'd like to watch it.

postitnote wrote:Do you have a link to the seminar assuming it was online? I'd like to watch it.

It's in Swedish unforunately:

http://www.ur.se/Produkter/166527-UR-Sa ... h-somnapne

But I still think that people want to be informed either way. Most of the seminar deals with her general experience with sleep apnea patients, their clinical profile, time of onset, stuff like that. It's worth informing relatives who do snore, that they should get it checked. Even if they don't have any issues.

Now where can I find someone who can translate for me...

http://www.ur.se/Webbar/Om-UR/About-UR/About-UR

THis is from the website - you can probably ask for the Eng. translation.

postitnote wrote:Now where can I find someone who can translate for me...

I can try to make a summary later tonight, I'll listen through the program first.

( I think its a swedish guy on your picture ?)

tiredandscared wrote:other factors like obesity and heredity and diet did not explain the etiology completely

Did they look at the most important factor - the size of the airway?

It's well known that there is a strong correlation between narrow airways and sleep apnea.

And the size of the airway is greatly dependent on jaw development. Broad, deep jaws rarely present with OSA. Narrow jaws/recessed chins often present with OSA.

tiredandscared, OP has done a good summary of the Swedish study. Interestingly, individuals with sleep apnea have impaired sensitivity to cold, which normally helps to stabilize the respiratory tract by inhalation. Because these patients do not feel the cold inhaled air falls airways together. This is believed to have been caused by years of snoring, which has given the damage to both nerves and muscles.

Hang Fire wrote:

tiredandscared wrote:other factors like obesity and heredity and diet did not explain the etiology completely

Did they look at the most important factor - the size of the airway?

It's well known that there is a strong correlation between narrow airways and sleep apnea.

And the size of the airway is greatly dependent on jaw development. Broad, deep jaws rarely present with OSA. Narrow jaws/recessed chins often present with OSA.

She did mention micrognathia/tonsils/uvala/obesity briefly as some of the extrinsic causes. She didn't mention the airway however. But I'm not sure it's the most pervasive cause, if your throat muscles aren't keeping you airway open, a narrow airway will aggravate OSA, but cause it? Maybe if you're a back sleeper, and have other factors going on aswell(Obese, aging). Probably more than one factor. But atleast there is a real physical cause for why the collapse happens. A narrow airway probably is underlying cause for sleep apnea itself.

Thanks for posting this - very interesting!

Lazer1234 wrote:

postitnote wrote:Now where can I find someone who can translate for me...

I can try to make a summary later tonight, I'll listen through the program first.

( I think its a swedish guy on your picture ?)

Yes. Alexander Skarsgård. His father is Stellan, also an actor and very handsome. There are three other brothers all in show business too. Alex played a vampire named Eric Northman in the series True Blood.

Maybe if we all died young, we would have been less likely to have Sleep Apnea. Jim

Maybe a better solution would be getting your treatment to work, instead of guessing what ifs. Jim

Matter, Anti-Matter and Don't Matter, builds the World.....

It now appears that my husband's apnea may be at least partially caused by a 4 cm. cyst on his thyroid.
His reluctance to go under the knife appears to be diminishing as my incisions heal.

chunkyfrog wrote:It now appears that my husband's apnea may be at least partially caused by a 4 cm. cyst on his thyroid.
His reluctance to go under the knife appears to be diminishing as my incisions heal.

How do people decide to go in and get their thyroid checked? What causes one to do so?

Goofproof wrote:Maybe if we all died young, we would have been less likely to have Sleep Apnea. Jim

Maybe a better solution would be getting your treatment to work, instead of guessing what ifs. Jim

Matter, Anti-Matter and Don't Matter, builds the World.....

Sure getting treatment to work is what we need. But we should also work on the underlying cause to. The great Al Thomas once said, ''If you're needy, you're weak.''

And perhaps that means strengthening our throat and tongue muscles.