Sleep apnea raises death risk 46 percent: study - Yahoo! News

This is why I am having my follow up sleep study tonight, as much of a drudgery as it is. This is why I sleep with a C-Pap every night. This is why I am paying now - to avoid paying later.

Tue Aug 18, 12:41 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Severe sleep apnea raises the risk of dying early by 46 percent, U.S. researchers reported Monday, but said people with milder sleep-breathing problems do not share that risk.

They said people with severe breathing disorders during sleep were more likely to die from a variety of causes than similar people without such sleep disorders. The risks are most obvious in men aged 40 to 70, Naresh Punjabi of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and colleagues found.

Sleep apnea is caused by a collapse of the upper airway during sleep. Strong snoring can be a symptom but what makes apnea different are numerous brief interruptions in breathing.

Sleep apnea is closely linked with obesity, high blood pressure, heart failure and stroke, but researchers have not been able to clearly quantify how much more likely it makes a person to die.

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If you snore, wake up tired, or hear from your loved ones that you stop breathing in the night, get a sleep study done. If you have severe apnea, you are taking big risks and ... and this is the big one ... killing brain cells.

Sleep is a very good thing. Psalm 122:7 says, "...he grants sleep to those he loves."

Take the gift. Get some real sleep.