NC Healthcare Coverage Blog

OSA, or obstructive sleep apnea, is distinguished as having interruptions during sleep caused by unbalanced breathing. Loud snoring, waking up choking or gasping or with a sore or dry mouth and being extremely tired during the day, are all symptoms of OSA.

One way to know if you have it for sure is to spend the night in a sleep lab. There you are hooked up to electrodes that evaluate your breathing. When people with sleep disorders snore, many physiological things take place. Blood pressure rises, oxygen and blood flow decrease, and heart irregularities are happen. Obviously, this is not a good night’s sleep. During the day, people having sleep apnea tend to have trouble with attentiveness and memory.

So what does all this have to do with diabetes? Diabetes and sleep apnea seem to be linked in certain ways. First of all, excess fat around the midriff is a risk for both diabetes and sleep apnea. People who have apple shapes or more fat cells in the upper body have different health effects than fat cells in the hips and thighs.

Then there is insulin resistance syndrome. It is a condition that is commonly found in people with diabetes as well as people with OSA. When breathing is too shallow, hormones are increased in the body causing blood sugar levels to raise and cause the body to not process excess blood sugar properly.

Another condition called neuropathy-nerve damage- frequently associated with diabetes, is also rampant in people with obstructive sleep apnea.

So what can you do to improve your odds of getting one of these problems or treat the ones you already have? Losing weight, avoid sleeping on your back, get at least 6 to 7 hours of sleep nightly, and avoid alcohol and other medications that may interfere with sleep are all ways that will help.

To summarize, sleep apnea may induce diabetes and vice versa. The good news is that the treatment of one may amend the aftermath of the other. As an example, a beneficial treatment for sleep apnea-Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or CPAP-can also assist in controlling blood sugar levels by increasing more oxygen to the body.