Snoring and high blood pressure

I see many patients in my clinic with snoring. It is socially disruptive and a source of marital disharmony. However many of these patients also have undiagnosed high blood pressure, when my nurse checks it.

Snoring is associated with obstructive sleep apnoea or OSA. OSA is a condition where a patient may stop breathing for short period of time during sleep. During this period of breath cessation or “apnoea”, oxygen levels in the blood drop and in response to this the heart has to beat faster to supply adequate amounts of oxygen to the brain. This process puts a strain on the heart muscles and can lead to high blood pressure.

In fact studies now show that more than 50% of patients with high blood pressure have underlying obstructive sleep apnea (see below).

Whilst it is important to identify OSA in patients with high blood pressure, treatment of OSA with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy only has modest effects on reducing blood pressure.

OSA is also associated with diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and sudden cardiac death at night. So the treatment of OSA, even if it has modest effects on blood pressure can bring other health benefits.

JK

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