Lifespan RESEARCH on cpap use vs no cpap use?

[Hang Fire]

This goes for obesity too. Studies done in Europe indicate they die earlier so save the system money in the long run.

About Europe, I don't know. But in the U.S. lifetime medical costs are not saved by dying earlier. 28% of costs are in the last six months of life. Both people who did not live healthily and those who did, still incur those big costs in the last six months.

As for insurance companies, their profits are higher if you live without major medical costs until age 65 when Medicare takes over for most people. So insurance companies do want you to be healthy and live to pay their premiums until at least 65.

Of course all bets are now off since our government has jumped deeper in bed with insurance companies with Obamacare guaranteeing them attractive profits no matter what happens.

[chunkyfrog]

Uh, what was the original topic again?
Forget what may have been said about cpap improving our memory.

[zoocrewphoto]

But! We do know that high blood pressure is a huge risk factor for strokes and heart attacks. Those both kill a lot of people. And sleep apnea causes high blood pressure. So, while the studies aren't direct, we can infer that successful treatment for sleep apnea will reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, and thus reduce the risk of early death.

And we should not forget that not all strokes kill. Those that do not kill can cause a LOT of expensive treatment. .

All people in denial should spend some time with people who have had a stroke/ dementia. Do you want to do this to your family? I have spent the last 2 1/2 years changing adult shitty diapers and feeding my mother, most of it due to strokes. And yes she used to snore badly and gasp.

So true. My dad's mom snored horribly and probably had sleep apnea most of her life. She chose to move into a nursing home back in her home town, so she was long distance her last couple years. But she was having mini strokes and probably alzheimers. She would randomly make phone calls and had lots of family details messed up. They programmed her phone so that 1-3 autodialed one son, 4-6 another son, and 7-9 her daughter. We would get random calls, and she would think we were there the night before or coming later that day (we lived 2000 miles away). She thought I was in high school when I was in college. She thought my sister worked for the company my mom worked for many years ago. We learned to go along with it, but it was very sad, and especially hard on my dad.

Shortly before I learned that sleep apnea causes high blood pressure, and that leads to stroke; I saw a regular customer where I work after she had a stroke. She looked like death. Grey skin, skinny, could barely make a sound, couldn't actually talk. Very sad. I was expecially aware of her as my doctor had been warning me that I had a higher risk of stroke. I didn't even like this lady, and the first time I saw her, I didn't recognize her until her husband joined her at the counter. She looked so defeated. I felt so sorry for her and her husband. I saw her a few times over the next few months. She stopped coming in. I see her husband alone sometimes. I wonder if she had another stroke, maybe even died.

Stroke scares me way more than a heart attack. I don't want to die, but living trapped in a basically useless body scares me far worse.

[The Latinist]

While I am a 100% supporter of CPAP, which has definitely changed my life for the better, I think that this is a good question. I don't know what the OP's motivations are, but it is certainly true that many things that have long been part of medical orthodoxy are simply not supported by evidence. As just one example, statins have long been prescribed to reduce blood cholesterol levels -- and they do, in fact, seem to reduce cholesterol levels. However, there seems to be no good evidence that they actually improve cardiac outcomes or extend life. Recent studies have suggested that statin-induced reductions in cholesterol do not correlate with reductions in cardiac events despite the well-established correlation between cholesterol level in general and heart attack.

Similarly, as long as there are no good long-term studies of CPAP and life-expectancy, it remains entirely possible that, while CPAP prevents apneic events and improves oxygen saturation, it does not extend lifespan. Please note that I am not saying that CPAP is not beneficial -- it undoubtedly is -- or that it does not improve health. And I suspect that it will, in fact, extend my life by preventing my stroking out in my sleep like my father. But I don't know that it will, nor do I know of any evidence that it does so for apneics in general. I therefore think it is a perfectly reasonable thing to challenge the assumption that it does.

[Sleeper Agent]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16100147

Mortality rates in OSAHS patients who did not receive PAP therapy were higher compared with those treated with PAP and were moderately or highly compliant with therapy. A trend in survival across compliance categories was found. Patients died mainly from CVD. Categories of PAP compliance, AHT, age, and FEV1 percent predicted were the variables that independently predicted mortality.