Banana helps Sleep Apnea Patients (keyboard damage alert)

http://www.livenews.com.au/livewire/ban ... 4/5/201903

I just got told about this news item from someone who heard the story on TV in NZ.

It is novel

DSM

#2 Dec 2009 - original link site gone - here is another

http://www.medindia.net/News/Banana-Can ... 9664-1.htm

i'm just anxious to see what Babette has to say about this

You mean all I need is a Banana Smoothie before bed at night??? And I can trade my CPAP for this???

ewwwww, I detest bananas, always have, cant stand the smell or the texture, everyone I know including family has flipped me s**t over this since I was little "eat them they are soooo good for you", now I am really never going to get them off my back why couldn't it have been mangos or raspberries......

Thank you DSM for posting that news item.

I wish I could try it but the reflux remains a problem.

cheers

Mars

I'm not sure why those Australian researchers wouldn't conduct sleep studies on a population of OSA patients on multiple nights, both with and without a banana smoothie nightcap, to see if the drink made a statistically significant different in their symptoms.

The current results are from preliminary studies.

The news item -

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/hea ... 76039.html

makes it clear that further studies with sleep apnea sufferers is the next step. No doubt that will take time.

cheers

Mars

I imagine the effectiveness of this will depend on the exact nature of the OSA involved. In my case, for example, I've got a size 5 tongue in a size 4 mouth and my throat isn't the problem.

Well, I must be losing my mind! There was a post yesterday at sleepguide about bananas and apnea. Skeptic that I am I did a PubMed search on apnea and bananas. There were 10 articles that came up as I remember but only two that really were relevant one from 2007, another from 2008. I think the research was done in France or Belgium. Both articles had a last name of Ramadan or similar amongst the authors. I posted the two abstracts.

And it all must have been one h*ll of a vivid dream!!! 'Cause not only is my post w/the two abstracts not at sleepguide but a search today at PubMed on apnea and bananas brought up - zero, zilch, na da, nuttin'

The two studies I dreamed about involved studies on NON-OBESE rats on a HIGH FAT fat diet.

This quote from the article caught my attention; "Phospholipids from other sources are known to keep the throat open, and the makeup of the molecules in bananas is similar". Technically phospholipids reduce inflammation. I don't believe that most OSA patients experience a reduction in airflow due to inflamation of the airway but due to a collapse of the airway due to anatomical reasons (of course everyone here knows this). I think the authors are really stretching their conclusions as to the benefit of bananas regarding reducing OSA symptoms. I know these are very preliminary findings but I am willing to bet that a study done with OSA sufferers will show no significant difference between control and treated groups. But I will continue to eat bananas cause they simply taste good. Thanks for posting the article dsm and you are right it is novel.

Hmmmm I've wondered why some nights I sleep pretty well and others barely. I have a smoothie with some banana in it often times in the evening. I'll try to observe whether it has any relation to the quality of my sleep.

Well, inflammation often or even usually causes swelling. Swelling could serve to obstruct the airway passages.

Hey! I don't even LIKE bananas. Neither the taste NOR the SMELL! But between Crohn's disease and COPD I've had PLENTY of experience w/inflammation and swelling.

(ONE exception, I do like banana nut bread IF the bananas weren't so ripe as to strengthen the smell and taste).

Phospholipids are what make soap bubbles round and air filled...it is what holds the bubbles "open" so to speak. We have surfactant in our lungs which is a phospholipid that holds our alveoli(the little air sacs) open. Babies do not produce surfactant until 37 weeks gestation so when a baby is born prematurely, we give them synthetic surfactant, directly into their lungs to help hold their alveoli open, thus reducing the amount of artificial pressure we must give them via a ventilator or cpap. So...when it comes to sleep apnea, I'm not sure what help phospholipids would be, as it is not our alveoli collapsing that causes our issues, and the phospholipids from bananas is not being instilled directly into our lungs. I have never in my entire career heard of phosphlipids keeping our throats "open". I just can't imagine that the phospholipids are what is needed in our throats to hold our airways open...it doesn't make sense to me. I also can't imagine dripping banana smoothie down a babies endotracheal tube to help the airways, but it WOULD be a whole lot cheaper than what we use now...wonder what the insurance companies would say when they are billed 500.00 for a banana!!

While I do love bananas, I have to weight the costs:

Sleeping with a CPAP machine, which I would rather NOT have, but really it's not THAT bad.

Or...

Having dentures at 40 years old from drinking a banana smoothie every night AFTER brushing my teeth.


I'll take CPAP, thank you.

In another vein, I like bananas but hate smoothies. I wonder if I could just eat a banana before bed?