How many people will it take to kill before everyone takes this disease seriously?

A few days ago, a piece of news shocked me:

(News source: Quanzhou Radio and Television News)

“Sudden death” comes without any warning?

What shocked me even more was:

According to his parents, the boy fell asleep as usual last night, and his snoring could be heard through the door.

He still didn't get up until almost noon the next day. When his family pushed the door open, they found that he had no breathing or heartbeat.

The doctor diagnosed that he died of "sleep apnea syndrome." In simple terms, he suffocated himself to death.

I looked up this disease and found that it was caused by something we may have all done:

--snore.

Many people think that snoring means a sound sleep. Who doesn’t have someone who snores?

But who would have thought that snoring could actually "kill people"!

A 35-year-old man in Tai'an died of apnea during sleep. His family said he was in good health and there was no problem with him.

Dr. Lu, 34 years old, was tall and strong. But he almost died in his sleep. After a colleague checked him, he found that he had at least 40 breathing pauses per hour, and the highest was 70 times per hour!

This disease does not even spare children.

6-year-old Haozi had respiratory arrest at night, the longest time being 49 seconds, 505 times a night! His mother had to check every night whether he was still alive.

Sudden death from snoring is really happening around us!

Seeing this, you may have questions:

Let me give you a little scientific knowledge first.

The principle of snoring is actually very simple:

When we enter "deep sleep", muscles throughout the body relax, including the muscles at the base of the tongue.

If the muscles at the base of the tongue are relaxed too much, they will sag due to gravity when you lie down, obstructing your breathing.

The air circulating in the respiratory tract hits the muscles at the root of the tongue, vibrates and makes sounds, which become snoring.

The situations that make the tongue root muscles too relaxed are generally these two:

This results in "physiological snoring".

It is a type of "benign snoring" and the snoring is even, rhythmic and very steady.

If you are this kind of voice, minor problems, you won't die.

but!

Some people have some problems that cause their airways to be narrower than normal:

Once you lie down to sleep at night and the muscles at the root of your tongue relax, it is easier to obstruct your respiratory tract or even block it directly!

This situation is called "pathological snoring".

This is a type of "malignant snoring" that is loud and irregular.

Sometimes I would suddenly stop while typing and couldn’t catch my breath!

It is what is mentioned above, "sleep apnea syndrome".

The most direct cause of death from this disease is: respiratory arrest causes cardiac hypoxia and induces myocardial infarction.

Our blood carries oxygen to various organs for use. The normal "blood oxygen saturation" of the human body should be maintained above 95%.

However, the doctor's monitoring showed that after the patient had sleep apnea for 10 seconds, the blood oxygen concentration dropped from 95% to 88%, which is below the safety line!

If myocardial cells cannot wait for blood oxygen to be used, heart failure may occur.

If breathing stops for more than 3 minutes, it is easy to die suddenly in sleep.

A young man in Zibo went to the doctor for snoring while sleeping. Sleep monitoring found that he stopped breathing 76 times every hour, and the longest time was nearly one and a half minutes.

But he didn't care and didn't receive any follow-up treatment.

Eventually, he died suddenly in his sleep.

A few days ago, I saw a surprising piece of news.

Mr. Zhao, 52, took four kinds of antihypertensive drugs to treat high blood pressure, but his blood pressure did not go down.

I had severe headaches every day and fell into despair at one point.

After careful examination, it was discovered that the real culprit was snoring at night.

Yes, snoring can also lead to high blood pressure.

Once you have sleep apnea syndrome, the probability of developing hypertension is over 50%, which is more than 1 times higher than that of the general population.

Mr. Peng from Changsha has always felt weak and tired for 10 years. Sometimes he would fall asleep while chatting with others.

After checking, it was found that he was snoring as expected.

Yes, snoring can also cause brain hypoxia and drowsiness.

Snoring has even extended its evil hand to our sex life!

After checking, I found that the high-risk group of snoring cannot be separated from two key words:

"Obese" and "old age"

Mr. Zeng, 31 years old, 175cm tall and 190kg in weight, has been waking up from sleep in the past half month, sweating profusely and feeling chest tightness and shortness of breath.

He went to the hospital for a check-up and was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea syndrome.

According to epidemiological surveys, the prevalence of sleep apnea syndrome in the general population is 17%, and in obese people it is as high as 40% to 70%.

Although we shouldn't have "body anxiety", we shouldn't really indulge ourselves.

It’s time to lose weight, so lose weight!

Another large group of people with sleep apnea syndrome:

People over 40 years old are our parents’ generation.

But have you noticed that the issues we care about most in terms of health are:

"Post-90s are in poor health" and "Post-90s died suddenly"

But we ignore the fact that our parents have really reached an age where they can no longer function.

Not only did our parents not know that snoring can be fatal, even we ourselves thought it was just a minor problem.

Due to their negligence, death has begun to surround them!

Therefore, we need to take the initiative to care about changes in our parents' bodies.

Chat with them more and spend more time with them.

Don't let go of any little problem!

I have compiled some methods for you.

You can do this self-assessment for yourself:

If you answered “yes” to more than three of the above

It is very likely "sleep apnea syndrome"!

For others, you can help them see:

If you find anything wrong, please take it seriously.

This means there may be something wrong with your respiratory tract.

If you can’t solve it yourself, you need to go to the hospital for a check-up!

Your doctor may give you several suggestions based on your situation:

In short, snoring is really a disease and needs to be treated!

References:

[1]. Report on “Obstructive Sleep Apnea and the Global Economic Burden”. Lancet Respir Med. 2019.

[2]. Observation on the incidence of hypertension in patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome. Dong Yanfeng, Zhang Suying, Ma Lei - Journal of Clinical Rational Drug Use. 2014

[3]. Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes and metabolic syndrome: the important value of multidisciplinary cross-disciplinary research from the progress of sleep apnea research. He Quanying. "Chinese Journal of Practical Internal Medicine". 2007

[4]. Wang Songjian, Huang Xiaoqing, Huang Yaqi. Effect of head position during supine sleep on the occurrence of sleep-disordered breathing events[J]. Beijing Biomedical Engineering, 2018, 37(04): 376-380.

[5]. An Yunqiang. Study on the mechanical mechanism of upper airway collapse and obstruction during sleep[D]. Capital Medical University, 2017.

[6]. Bie Yinghui. Epidemiological survey of obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome in Guangzhou[D]. Guangzhou Medical College, 2011.

[7].Tetrapod Zoology. Sleep Behavior and SleepPostures in Non-Human Animals. Tetzoo, September 2008.