Sleep Facts

Snoring = Vibrational noise of the throat and mouth’s loose tissue caused from increased effort to breath and increased air speed passing by these tissues.

Sleep Apnea (SA) = a frequent complete disruption of breathing (suffocation) that occurs more than 5 times per hour for greater than 10 seconds at a time.

Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (UARS) = a frequent increased effort to breath without total breath stoppage that causes repetitive disruptions in sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness

An estimated 70 – 80 million Americans snore occasionally and about 40 million snore routinely.

An estimated 63 million Americans claim to suffer moderated to severe levels of excessive daytime sleepiness.  Some of these individuals suffer from sleep apnea or UARS.

Lack of sleep causes many problems.  Individuals that have SA or UARS may not recognize that their sleep is being disturbed by their breathing difficulty.

Over a million Americans die from cardiovascular diseases each year.

Sleep Apnea can be a direct cause of cardiovascular disease.

18 – 20 Million Americans suffer from sleep apnea.  Sleep apnea patients are:

            2 times more likely to experience  high blood pressure,

            3 times more likely to experience a heart attack,

            4 times more likely to experience a stroke, and

            5 times more likely  to be involved in an auto accident!

Mortality ( increased risk or premature death ) rate of men below the age of 60 is 2.7 times higher if snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is present…symptoms found in sleep apnea and upper airway resistance syndrome.

Snoring & EDS has been linked to one cause of diabetes

Sleep deprivation & chronic fatigue is linked to weight gain.  The data suggests that the current “epidemic of obesity” in this country is caused in part by chronic sleep loss.

For those overweight & snoring, a 10% decrease in body weight can produce a 50% decrease in snoring & SA.

Sleep deprivation or sleep debt at the time of  (flu) vaccination reduces the effectiveness of the vaccination for the first 3 – 4 weeks after vaccination.  It takes the body more time to produce the protective antibodies.  Adequate amounts of sleep are needed for optimal resistance to infectious challenge

Kids snore too!  Kids have SA too!  It’s suspected that some kids diagnosed with ADD are probably suffering from symptoms of SA or UARS instead.

 SA & snoring has been linked to poor learning performance in early grade students.

Children with lower academic performance in middle school are 3 times more likely to have been affected by SA & snoring during early childhood .

Drowsiness takes its toll:

             It slows our reaction time.

             Over 100 million people are driving while drowsy.

             14 million say they have fallen asleep while driving.

            It’s attributed to cause over 100,000 auto accidents a year.

 Drowsiness & fatigue is beginning to outstrip alcohol as a cause of transportation accidents.

Lack of sleep can undermine skills… Research has shown that staying awake for more than 17 hours causes the same slowed response level of one who is legally drunk!  17 – 19 hrs is a “normal” workday for many people … including surgeons, airline pilots, ship’s captains, bus drivers, & nuclear reactor operators

Fatigue is directly involved in at least 31% of fatal truck crashes to the driver.