New Swedish study sheds some light on mild-to-severe sleep apnea

Half of the adult women who answered a questionnaire and were monitored while sleeping experienced at least five episodes an hour when they stopped breathing for longer than 10 seconds, which is the minimum definition of sleep apnea. The numbers were even higher among women with hypertension or who were suffering from obesity.

Dr. Karl Franklin, the lead author of the study and a professor at Umea University in Sweden, said that he is not aware of the importance of the mild sleep apnea. But Terry Young, a professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin, noted that attention should be paid to mild sleep apnea because it doesn’t go away and gets worse in time.

Sleep apnea usually means a higher risk of stroke, heart attack and early death.

According to another recent study women who have sleep apnea are more likely to develop memory problems and dementia.

Back to the reason for this article, 400 women between the ages of 20 and 70 took part in the study of Franklin. They were asked to sleep overnight at home with sensors attached to their bodies. The sensors measured heart rate, eye and leg movements, blood oxygen levels, air flow and brain waves.

Women who had an average of five or more apnea events, which is a 10-second pause in breathing accompanied by a drop in blood oxygen levels, during each hour of sleep were considered to have sleep apnea.

The results of the study funded by the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation show that apnea became more common in the older age groups. Among women aged 20-44, one quarter had sleep apnea, compared to 56 percent of women aged 45-54 and 75 percent of women aged 55-70.

The good news is that severe sleep apnea, which involves more than 30 breathing disruptions per hour, was far less common – only 4.6 percent of women 45-54 and 14 percent of women 55-70 had severe cases.

Among women of all ages with hypertension, 14 percent had severe sleep apnea, and among women who were obese, 19 percent had severe apnea.

Sleep apnea is often wrongly considered to be a condition of men, but identifying women with it can be especially beneficial, because according to the research women are good at sticking with treatment.