Why is sleep apnea an issue now?

Hello everybody,

I'm just curious about something.......

Why is this an issue now? Humans have been snoring since the beginning of time...... and more then likely probably not breathing all the time while they sleep. Why all of a sudden with this generation is this an issue?

Have there been any studies that prove beyond a doubt that not snoring and breathing continuously while asleep improves the quality of a persons life and/or helps them live longer?

Thanks in advance (smile)

If you do any googling on the subject of snoring, it can really disturb the quality of sleep of a partner. Is that important? Things have been done for ages to mitigate snoring starting with my wife jabbing me and telling me to roll over to my side away from her but medically, things have been done to help folks get snoring under control. As far as sleep apnea, it isn't snoring but snoring is a symptom; all folks who snore may not have sleep apnea. Why is apnea important to your health. When you stop breathing, you blood oxygen drops (for some patients) and if it drops for a significant amount of time and number of times, you start to have health problems; organ damage, heart problems, etc. Did doctors know this 100 years ago? Not sure but I doubt it. There are MANY studies that show links to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and many other medical complications where sleep apnea is a major contributor and all that info is out there waiting to be looked at if you choose to take the time.

Soooooo ........ what you are saying is that humans have been sleeping incorrectly since the beginning of time?

Granted snoring can be disturbing for those that are around the person snoring..... but this also has been going on since humans have been on this planet.

You haven't actually answered my question ... but thanks for your input (smile)

There are tons of studies establishing that people with untreated sleep apnea are likely to die earlier and suffer more negative health outcomes.

The fact that the disease has been around a long time is not unusual. Cancer and heart disease have been around for a long time.

Natural selection hasn't weeded out people with sleep apnea because if we're going to die due to sleep apnea, we usually do so when we're old enough that we're not in prime reproductive condition.

Medical science is continually discovering things that have been with us since the beginning that negatively impact our health and longevity. Do you really think that high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer have not been with humans since the beginning? Does the fact that average lifespans are ever increasing have meaning to you?

So yes, mankind has likely suffered from sleep apnea for a very long time. Apnea has affected our health for a long time. In the past, if you had apnea, you died younger, but after reproductive age, and lived a lesser quality life. I sense you are thinking that sleep apnea is a sham disease and has been created to make the device makers a ton of easy money. You are wrong. It's just recently been identified as to the broad ranging health effects that sleep disturbed breathing has on people.

I wondered this same thing. However, after having my sleep test and being told how many times I stopped breathing and how low my blood oxygen went, it is hard to argue that it is made up. I asked about why it has exploded and it seems so many people now have a machine? I was told it is because many people are obese now. This is not all, as it is not the cause of my issue. I think this has always been around, we just didn't know it and now the numbers are really high because of so much obesity.

People used to die of "wasting diseases" or whatever a doctor could tag it with because they really didn't know what it was. We also hear more about cancer and other diseases now than in the past. Part of it is because we are more knowledgeable than in the past and part is because we hear more about it on the radio, television, newspapers and social media. I also have Restless Leg Syndrome which has been under attack for years as a made-up disease so the pharma companies and make money on medications. Let me tell you, I have suffered with this LONG before there were any medications available. Do we have to be vigilant about people trying to make money off of trumped up medical problems? Of course, but even more we need to be vigilant towards understanding new health problems and how to treat them.

Sleep Apnea is deadly because you will not get the desired amount of sleep which means that:

• It will be difficult for you to concentrate.
• Your efficiency will decrease.
• You will need a Nap during the day
• Chances of feeling irritable increases
• Your chances of dying early increase with this disease

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