This is a case of the medical profession seeing an opportunity and "declaring it a disease". They used to call it snoring. Now it is OSA. And yes, I am aware that there are medical ramifications, but slipping on the sidewalk or eating sugar do as well. Now it is a medical matter and sleep clinics have sprung out of the ground like mushrooms, each with a license to print money.
This is entirely incorrect. OSA, particularly in the moderate to severe ranges, is a terribly serious disease with deadly consequences. It can take decades off your life and spawn debilitating diseases along the way that you never would've had otherwise. Diabetes, hypertension and all its terrible effects, stroke, heart attack, etc.
The correct view is that OSA has been a terrible, serious disease for millenia, but science is only starting to understand it now, in the last 20-40 years or so. Before the mid-1960's, everyone was pretty much clueless about it. Before the 1980's, the only treatment choice was having a hole drilled in your throat. Before the 1990's or even the 2000's the machines were crude and hard to use routinely (no exhale pressure relief, etc.)
OSA wasn't any less horrifically harmful back when it was not known about. It still had the same horrible effects on its victims. Don't assume that the centuries of ignorance somehow means it wasn't there; that's completely faulty logic.
Yes, drug companies reclassify lots of normal human behavior as "diseases" so they can sell treatments. OSA, however, is not such a case. The mountain of evidence is extremely clear.
Does that mean some sleep clinics aren't mere "profit centers" that show little regard to the patients' needs? No, clearly there are bad clinics out there that are more interested in the almighty dollar than in treating you as well as possible.
But that does -not- mean OSA is a moneymaking invention.
