How sleep apnea breaks your heart

Sleep apnea is a breathing problem.  So how does it affect your heart?  

Let’s examine one cycle (one “event”) of sleep apnea.  When you stop breathing during your sleep your blood oxygen levels go down.  Your brain wakes up briefly (usually not to full consciousness) to reopen your airway and start breathing effectively again.  Your blood oxygen goes back up to where it should be as you re-enter sleep.  

This cycle is a micro-threat to your body, which means the “sympathetic tone” rises.  The sympathetic tone is also called the fight or flight response, something our bodies are pre-programmed to do in response to a threat.  There are several things that happen automatically, to get your body ready for fight or flight.  Blood vessels constrict and your heart rate increases. Inflammatory mediators are released.  Stress hormones ramp up.  Platelets get a little more sticky and your tendency to clot increases.  Some wobbly heart rhythms and changes in pressure within the chambers of the heart can be seen.  These processes occur outside of your control and awareness, over and over and over in someone with untreated sleep apnea. The effects of these micro-threats accumulate over a number of years.

Added stress from sleep apnea is also caused by drops in blood oxygen levels that are starving the heart muscle of oxygen, just like every other tissue in the body.  

So your heart parts will wear out faster than usual or start to act dysfunctional.  If your sleep apnea is not completely treated, it will break your heart.  

Shown below are heart and blood vessel conditions associated with untreated or undertreated sleep apnea.  In general, the severity of your sleep apnea is proportional to the risk for developing heart or blood vessel problems.  If you already have heart or blood vessel problems, sleep apnea interferes with the treatment of those conditions.

• High blood pressure
• Heart rhythm problems (such as atrial fibrillation, or AFIB)
• Heart attack, coronary artery disease, or angina
• Stroke or TIA
• Heart failure
• Pulmonary hypertension

Bottom line:  get your sleep apnea fully treated so you don’t end up heartbroken!

If you want to protect your heart and wondering if you should see a sleep doctor and get a sleep apnea test, request a link to my free guide on this page:  

When to see a sleep doctor