Your doctor says that you must wear that Darth Vader mask, which ends a foul month. First, the slight shortness of breath you had during brisk walking turned out to be coronary artery disease. This led to stents being placed within the blood vessels in your heart. In addition to the brand new medication, you were then referred to a cardiac rehabilitation program where instructions got about getting more exercise, losing a few pounds, and changing a healthy weight-reduction plan. Lastly, due to history of snoring, a sleep study was performed and revealed obstructive sleep apnea, a condition where you stop respiratory at night. Your doctor may recommend treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) to scale back the danger that your coronary heart disease will progress to a heart attack or stroke.
But, is there any evidence to support this advice?
CPAP is the very best treatment for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea. It is a tool worn while sleeping that works like a reverse vacuum cleaner and applies pressure through the mask to the airway to stop it from collapsing during respiratory. Obstructive sleep deprivation is a risk factor for developing hypertension, coronary artery disease, stroke and premature death. Treatment with CPAP lowers blood pressure, and there may be some evidence that it could prevent the event of heart disease and reduce the danger of early death. However, until recently, there was no evidence that CPAP was useful in individuals who already had heart disease. Now, results from a big international clinical trial suggest that CPAP may not reduce the danger of developing heart disease.
gave save it. The trial recruited 2,717 adults with a history of coronary artery disease or stroke from seven countries (though not the United States). Half were treated with CPAP and half were untreated. After a mean follow-up of three.7 years, the number of people that died of heart disease, had a heart attack, stroke, or were hospitalized for heart failure was similar between CPAP users and those that didn’t. For individuals who t
Does this mean you shouldn't use CPAP if you might have heart disease and sleep apnea? Absolutely not. Despite its lack of profit in reducing heart disease and stroke on this study, people within the CPAP group had improvements in daytime sleepiness, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and overall quality of life. Additionally, there was a suggestion that the CPAP group had a lower risk of stroke. In addition, it is crucial to notice that nearly all of subjects were Asian, and that risk aspects for obstructive sleep apnea differ amongst Asians in comparison with other ethnic groups.
Finally, only 42% of subjects within the CPAP group used it greater than 4 hours per night, which is the minimum period of time considered acceptable use within the United States. It is feasible that any good thing about CPAP in stopping the progression of heart disease would require higher use. While one could use the outcomes of this study as an excuse not to make use of CPAP, it will be a mistake to achieve this until more information is out there. Studies confirm that CPAP reduces sleepiness and improves quality of life. More studies shall be needed to conclude that it doesn’t reduce the danger of developing heart disease in individuals who have already got it.