Does apnea just like smoking cause

[tony72]

Cause immediate damage to our bodies?

[kteague]

Hmmm, maybe somebody medical will come along and give some more exact answers, but in general, even though damage may be small or accumulative before it's an obvious problem, isn't every little bit of the accumulative damage done immediately - bit by bit? We hear of those who died in their sleep due to a cardiac event or stroke who were known to have untreated OSA, so those would be suspect. My brain scans show multiple microvascular ischemic lesions. Seems reasonable to suspect those were related to apnea events with desats.

Then there are those who treat their OSA, get healthy, and feel better than ever. Seems some damage is reversible.

[SleepyToo2]

There are animal studies that show negative effects of hypoxia within a few hours. I have to believe that it is highly likely that the damage will start to be done very quickly. However, our bodies are remarkable systems with lots of redundancy built in, so it may take years before those effects start to become clinically relevant. Even longer before we actually notice them and even think about getting them treated!

[DreamStalker]

We are aerobic organisms. That means we need oxygen. Lack of sufficient oxygen can kill some of your body's cells, if not all of them. Whether the damage is reversible depends upon the type of cells damaged and whether they can be replaced/regenerated by your body.

[chunkyfrog]

If you are a smoker, perhaps you remember the first time.
You probably coughed, maybe choked, even gagged a bit.
This was your body's response to a TOXIC substance.
My wonderful, late, aunt Etta encouraged me to INHALE that first puff of one of hers.
Boy, was I gullible! It was the last one. Thank you, Aunt Etta.

[Janknitz]

Sleep apnea is a death of a thousand cuts. Each apnic event causes just a little damage, and it takes years for those tiny bits of damage to add up. It is similar to smoking in that the first cigarette isn't going to kill you, neither is the 9,900th, but at some point in time all the damage done by cigarettes will kill you.

[robysue]

Sleep apnea is a death of a thousand cuts. Each apnic event causes just a little damage, and it takes years for those tiny bits of damage to add up. It is similar to smoking in that the first cigarette isn't going to kill you, neither is the 9,900th, but at some point in time all the damage done by cigarettes will kill you.

I won't argue that smoking kills---I've lost too many smoking relatives (including my mother) to lung cancer.

But I do want to point out that 9900 cigarettes is not that many for a heavy smoker like my mother was. 9900 cigarettes is equal to 495 packs of cigarettes. A heavy smoker will blow through 495 packs in 247.5 days---less than a year.

Moma was a two-pack a day smoker for years and years---as in at least 25-30 years. And that's something like 365,000-438,000 cigarettes smoked over her lifetime. The irony of it all was that she finally quit smoking about 2 years before being diagnosed with the cancer that killed her.

Of course, the same kind of arithmetic is at work is for those who go years and years and years with untreated OSA. Think about it: If you have untreated severe OSA (AHI = 30) and you "sleep" about 6 hours a night, in 10 years of untreated sleep your body will endure close to 712,000 apneas and hypopneas. And 657,000 times even a tiny bit of damage does add up. Sleep apnea is indeed a death of a (hundred) thousand cuts.