Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) is defined as the cessation of airflow for 10 seconds or more during sleep. Apnoeic episodes could happen many times during the sleep.

It is mostly a male disorder and 1,25% men have this problem. It is not common in premenopausal women. All OSAS patients have narrow upper airways. There are many risk factors for OSAS and they include:

• Hypothyroidism, decreased T3, T4 and increaed TSH
• Narrow upper airway
• High blood pressure and other heart problems
• Cardiac arrhthmias – the heart beat may be rapid or too slow and may be regular or irregular
• Overweight and Obesity

Snoring is a sign of partial upper airway obstruction and it ceases when the obstruction is complete.

The symptoms of OSAS include:

• Morning headache
• Tiredness
• Poor physical performance
• Poor intellectual performance
• Loud and intermittent snoring
• Daytime sleepiness or excess sleep – reason for serious social and economic consequences which include loss of job, road accidents and divorce.
• Impotence
• Libido problems or loss of libido

Today there are many methods to make the necessary distinction between type, frequency and severity of apnoeatic episodes. Go to your doctor and he will do the tests and direct you to the right sleep laboratory.

There are medical and surgicals ways for your doctor to treat this. Medicines are also used. The use breathing machines like the nasal continuous positive airway pressure is effective, but here patient compliance is poor. The use of tongue retaining device is also good and this prevents retrolapse of the tongue during sleep.

Many people benefit from sleeping at a 30 degree elevation of the upper body. By doing so we could prevent the gravitational collapse of the airway. Sleeping on a side as opposed to sleeping on the back is recommended as a treatment for sleep apnoea. It is because the gravitational component is smaller in the side position.

But the most important things to change one’s lifestyle. Losing weight, avoiding alcohol and tobacco and medicines like muscle relaxants help a lot. By many the snoring is vanished. Here a healthy food is very important. Try my metabolism based individual diet to reduce and maintain your weight.