Sleep apnea, also known as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder that tends to affect between 10 to 20% of adult population within the United States. It is also associated with a higher risk of particular chronic diseases.
A new study found that for people that are more active – those that spend less time in front of the television – are linked to a lowered risk of developing OSA later on.
Having OSA involves a ‘repeated, intermittent upper airway blockage during sleep.’ What the blockage does is it lessens or reduces the airflow to the lungs, which can therefore increase the risk of other serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and a number of other health issues.
When there is OSA, the throat muscles relax temporarily during sleep, which causes the ‘partial or complete blockage of the airway.’
Another major symptom or indicator of OSA is snoring. It also causes inadequate nighttime oxygen and interrupted sleep, which normally results in headaches, mood swings, daytime sleepiness, high blood pressure, and other harmful effects.
How Physical Activity Helps OSA
Former research on OSA and physical activity shows that lower levels of activity throughout the day, or higher levels of inactivity could be linked to higher risks of OSA.
Other reasons for these adverse effects also include chronic low levels of inflammation, fluid retention, excess body fat, and insulin resistance.
Investigators from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MA, Harvard Medical School in Boston MA, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and other institutions worked together on the new study that looked into “the potential role of maintaining an active lifestyle in reducing [OSA] incidence.” Their research results were published in the European Respiratory Journal.
What the study authors hypothesized is that by being more physically active and spending less time sitting in front of the television watching are ‘behaviors linked to a lower risk of developing OSA.’ The study aimed to bring out the factors of each of these activities as an influence with OSA risk.
The Study
Throughout the study, the investigators looked at data from 137,917 participants all enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII), and the Health Professional Follow-Up Study (HPFS).
According to the Medical News Today (MNT), assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the authors of the study, Tianyi Huang, said that many of these big and longer-lived continuous studies are good sources of reliable health-related information since the participants are actually healthcare professionals.
Huang also shared that among the general public, “OSA is highly underdiagnosed.” He also said that there is a higher chance that healthcare professionals are presumptively more able to recognize and note the symptoms associated with OSA.
The Study Results
During their analysis, the researchers made sure to account for the hours the participants spent while having to sit at work. Whereas, they accounted for the physical activity as any time spent in different forms of movement such as walking, running, weightlifting, lap swimming, and the like.
On the whole, the group found that those participants that were less active were the ones likelier to report symptoms of OSA. As a result, the individuals that had more sedentary jobs also had a 49% higher risk of OSA than those participants that had jobs that were less sedentary.
Notably, participants that watched over 4 hours of television every day also had a 78% higher risk of OSA than those individuals that had less sedentary lifestyles.
Therefore, by keeping a more active lifestyle and trying to lessen excessive sedentary behavior are associated with a much lower risk of developing OSA. Because of this, there is also a link to a lowered risk of potentially getting a number of other serious health conditions, such as obesity and cardiovascular disease.
It’s A Necessary Two-Way Relationship
Because of the nature of the study, the study authors weren’t able to discern cause and effects, meaning they couldn’t determine if the TV watching and inactivity actually promotes OSA or if it’s because of the adverse health effects of OSA that actually encourage the sedentary behavior.
While it comes as no surprise that watching TV and following sedentary behaviors, such as sitting for lengthened periods of time, which are also possibly linked to OSA, Huang hypothesizes that it’s actually ‘the effects of TV watching on OSA may be due to obesity.’
Huang shared, “TV watching most strongly correlated with sleep apnea. TV watching is also correlated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.”
Chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, Dr. Albert A. Rizzo, M.D., who wasn’t involved in the study told MNT, “It makes sense to look at the relationships between OSA, sedentary behavior, and TV watching.”
He added, “It struck me, though, that this is a chicken-or-the-egg type of situation […] Many people with obesity have OSA, but does obesity lead to OSA, or does OSA contribute to obesity? I think you could argue either way.”
Meanwhile, he still remained evasive about the relationship between the two, explaining, “I thought [the study] was an interesting way to look at it, but I think it probably occurs both ways.”
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