Sleep Apnea and Weight Loss: How Does Weight Reduction Help in the Treatment?

Desperate situations demand desperate measures. The level of desperation of the average apnea patient to get better is usually so high that he or she is willing to walk any number of extra miles to get relief from the recurrent breathlessness that the condition causes. Despite the anguish, most patients are flummoxed when advised quick weight loss. This is surprising indeed. Sleep apnea and weight loss – how are these two otherwise unrelated conditions ever be linked?

Why is losing weight important?

If you are obese, you are asking for various kinds of health troubles. Many of the ill-effects of obesity are well-known. For example, being overweight not only results in hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes and other chronic health conditions, but also several types of sleep and breathing disorders, snoring being most common. When neglected, the same snoring could worsen into sleep apnea.

But why do people ignore snoring? They do so because snoring appears to be a simple sleep problem. What these people do not know is that if neglected for too long, the deceptively simple features can turn really ugly when it becomes sleep apnea. What they also miss out is that majority snorers are also obese.

Putting on weight is not limited to gathering extra flab around the waist, etc. It also means accumulating fat in the breathing muscles, which become flaccid and weak. They eventually collapse and block the air passage, resulting in recurrent breathing pauses which happen to be one of the characteristic symptoms of sleep apnea. As is evident initiatives to lose weight becomes imperative for any kind of treatment to be effective.

And now sleep apnea and weight gain!

As if this was not all, the disorder is also closely linked to gaining excess body weight. While obesity triggers apnea condition, increase in body weight is also an outcome as well as one of the prominent symptoms of sleep apnea. Considering the serious sleep deprivation that the disorder results in, it is obvious that the condition would adversely affect normal appetite of the patient. Rapid and unexplained gain in body weight is the inevitable outcome.

Therefore sleep apnea and gaining extra flab share a unique cause and effect relationship where obesity could be causing sleep apnea; it could also be a side-effect!

There should not be any doubt at this stage about the close link between the disorder and its symptoms and body weight.

By getting slimmer there are fat chances of quick recovery

Weight loss requires active cooperation of the patient. This not only involves embarking on a regular workout program and following strict diets but also learning more about sleep apnea exercises that are designed to tone and strengthen the breathing muscles. Sleep apnea treatment can only be effective when the severity of the symptoms is reduced substantially. This can happen only when all such initiatives are taken simultaneously. Thus, the next time you hear someone mention sleep apnea and weight loss do not be surprised. You know where the link begins and ends.

If you want to know more about sleep apnea and weight loss, then visit Douglas Kidder’s site where he discusses the relationship between sleep apnea and weight gain.