The Silent Danger: How Sleep Apnea Impacts Your Health

Are you constantly tired despite getting "enough" sleep? Do you wake with headaches or find yourself nodding off during the day? You might be among the one-fifth of adults suffering from sleep apnea without even knowing it.

Sleep apnea isn't just about snoring or poor sleep – it's a potentially dangerous condition where breathing repeatedly stops throughout the night, preventing your body from reaching the deep, restorative sleep stages where physical and emotional repair occur. Each breathing interruption triggers a cascade of physiological responses that strain your heart, spike stress hormones, and create chronic inflammation throughout your body.

We dive deep into the two types of sleep apnea (obstructive and central), revealing why this condition dramatically increases risks for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cognitive decline. You'll learn how sleep apnea disrupts critical hormones that control hunger and satiety, explaining why poor sleep quality typically leads to overeating by 300-400 calories the next day, especially craving carbs and sugar. The connection between sleep apnea and gut health is particularly fascinating – fragmented sleep may actually reduce microbial diversity and increase gut permeability, further driving systemic inflammation.

The good news? Sleep apnea is both diagnosable and treatable. We explore diagnostic testing options and break down treatment approaches from CPAP therapy to lifestyle modifications. You'll discover how plant-based nutrition creates a powerful foundation for addressing sleep apnea through sustainable weight management, reduced inflammation, and improved gut health. Whether you're concerned about your own sleep or someone you care about, this episode provides actionable steps to recognize, address, and potentially reverse this common but serious condition.

Don't accept chronic fatigue as normal. Your body might be trying to tell you something important during the night that you're missing while asleep. Listen to this episode, recognize the warning signs, and take control of your sleep health today.

Go check out my website for tons of free resources on how to transition towards a healthier diet and lifestyle.

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Peace, love, plants!
Dr. Jules

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey everyone, welcome to Season 2 of the Dr Jules
Plant-Based Podcast, where wediscuss everything from
plant-based nutrition to themain pillars of lifestyle
medicine.
Yo, plant-based buddies,welcome back to another episode.
Today we're going to be talkingabout a subject that impacts
millions of people.

(00:31):
Most of them don't even knowabout it Sleep apnea.
Now, it's loud, it's sneaky andit doesn't just mess with your
sleep.
It can actually impact yourheart, your brain, your
metabolism, even your mood.
So today we'll be covering awhole bunch of information.
We'll talk about what sleepapnea is and how to recognize it

(00:55):
, the difference betweenobstructive and central sleep
apnea, and why sleep apnea isdangerous, even deadly if it's
left untreated.
We'll talk about how it impactsyour hormones, your heart and
your brain, and lifestyle anddietary strategies that can
improve it, and when you shouldtry a CPAP or even consider

(01:17):
getting tested and gettingdiagnosed.
Sleep apnea is a disorder whereyour breathing repeatedly stops
and starts while you sleep, andthe word apnea literally means
no breathing.
Now, there are two types ofsleep apnea obstructive sleep

(01:39):
apnea and central sleep apnea.
Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, is the most common and is
caused by soft tissues in yourthroat that collapse and block
airflow.
Central sleep apnea is a lotrarer and is basically the brain
that fails to send propersignals to breathe.

(01:59):
Today, we'll focus mostly onOSA obstructive sleep apnea
which impacts almost 20% ofadults one out of five and most
people don't even know that theyhave it.
Now, the symptoms of sleepapnea could include loud snoring
, gasping or even choking forair during sleep.

(02:20):
A lot of people will reportexcessive daytime fatigue.
They're nodding off and fallingasleep during the day when
they're driving and when they'resitting on the couch watching
television, not stimulated.
Some people will wake up withmorning headaches or dry mouth,
and a lot of people have troublefocusing, will have mood swings

(02:41):
or even symptoms of anxiety ordepression.
Now, the thing is that a lot ofpeople report sleeping seven or
eight hours per night, butstill feeling tired and
exhausted the next day, andthat's probably because they
have good sleep quantity butthey do not have sleep quality.
Now, if you recall my episodeon sleep, we reviewed sleep

(03:08):
stages, sleep cycles and thedifferent benefits of each of
these stages of sleep, includingstage N3 and REM sleep.
Now, stage N3, which we calldeep sleep or slow-wave sleep,
is where physical repair happens, and your REM sleep is where
emotional repair happens,physical repair happens and your
REM sleep is where emotionalrepair happens.

(03:28):
So when people experience sleepapnea, they just never make it
to deep sleep stages and REMsleep in sufficient quantity so
that repair can happen.
Now sleep apnea is not justannoying, it's actually a very
serious health condition.
When you stop breathing, youroxygen drops and then your brain
freaks out and jolts you awake,even if you don't remember it.

(03:51):
Now this could happen dozens oftimes per night or hundreds of
times per night, and apneas areactually measured in events per
hour.
So if you get tested and get ascore of 22, it's not that
you've had 22 apneas orhypopneas per night.

(04:14):
You've had them per hour, andthat's how we grade severity of
sleep apnea.
Now, having these apneas duringnight will trigger a cascade of
health problems that includeincreased blood pressure,
increased heart rate, a strainon your heart, and you'll get a
higher risk of arrhythmias,heart failure and even stroke.

(04:37):
But it also messes with yourmind.
It messes with memory andcognition.
Poor oxygen levels in yourbrain will fragment your sleep
and also will impact your brainlong term.
You might feel groggy the nextday.
You might actually have lowconcentration or tension levels.
Poor sleep will also increasecortisol and insulin resistance.

(05:02):
It can even make youpre-diabetic or make diabetics
have a harder time to controltheir blood sugar.
Now let's not forget aboutdaytime drowsiness.
It increases the risk ofaccidents or falling asleep at a
wheel and if it's untreated,sleep apnea will raise your risk
of heart disease, of cancer, ofearly death, of diabetes and

(05:26):
even obesity.
Sleep apnea can wreak havoc onmany of your body's functions,
including hormones andinflammation.
Now sleep apnea when itdisrupts your natural sleep
architecture, it actually altershormone production, and that
includes leptin and ghrelin.
Now these are two hormones thatregulate your hunger and your

(05:49):
satiety, and these hormones getflipped.
The ghrelin increases and yourleptin goes down.
So the next day, after you'veslept poor sleep because of
sleep apnea or any other cause,you will crave more calories,
especially from carbs and sugar.
Some studies have shown thatpeople who have poor, disrupted

(06:11):
sleep will overeat by anythingfrom 300 to 400 calories.
The next day, as your stresshormones increase, your cortisol
spikes, you'll feel morestressed.
You'll even have increasedinsulin resistance.
That'll make your blood sugarsharder to regulate.

(06:32):
Some people, when we in studieswe sleep, deprive them on
purpose.
Their insulin resistance shootsup through the roof and we can
actually make patientspre-diabetic, or we can worsen
blood sugar control in diabeticssimply by restricting their

(06:52):
sleep.
Now inflammatory markers even goup, like CRP interleukin-6.
That creates a low-grade,chronic inflammatory state, and
that's not great for long-termhealth.
We know that chronicinflammation is at the root of
most of our chronic diseases, somuch so that I actually have an

(07:14):
episode both in season one andin season two.
I think I have two episodes inEnglish and two in French which
review inflammation.
It's a very important thing tokeep at bay Now.
Inflammation in the short termis an acute and protective
mechanism that we use to helpheal and ward off bugs and

(07:36):
infections, but low-grade,chronic inflammation is actually
negative for our health.
Now there's even new researchshowing that sleep disruption
may actually negatively impactour gut microbiome.
Now studies suggest thatfragmenting your sleep will

(07:57):
cause intermittent hypoxia.
Hypoxia simply means low oxygen, and low oxygen levels in your
body could potentially reducemicrobial diversity and even
increase what we call gutpermeability, or leaky gut as
it's called.
Now that's linked to chronicinflammation and, although we

(08:18):
need more research, it's justanother reason to take your
sleep very seriously Now.
Typical people who would beconsidered at higher risk for
sleep apnea are people who areobese, especially those who have
a lot of visceral fat, or whatwe call central adiposity fat
that's accumulated around theirabdomen, inside of their organs,

(08:41):
and also people who haveaccumulated a lot of fat around
the neck.
Now this increases thelikelihood of your airways
collapsing when you're sleeping.
Now, although we know thatpostmenopausal women tend to
have an increased risk of sleepapnea than premenopausal women,

(09:01):
being a male increases the riskdrastically.
Anyone over 40 tends to havelower muscle mass, lower BMR and
higher adiposity.
So just age is considered arisk factor for sleep apnea and
there are also anatomicalvariabilities or variations that

(09:22):
could increase your risk.
So people that have large neckcircumference, narrow airways
and people who, when we examinethem, we do a throat exam we
can't see their tonsils or theback of their throat, and we
also know that people who drink,use alcohol, sedatives before

(09:42):
going to bed, like sleepingpills, also will have a higher
risk of having sleep apnea.
How do we diagnose sleep apnea?
Talk to your doctor about asleep study if either you or
your partner notices symptoms.
Now this would mean havingeither a full sleep lab study In

(10:11):
New Brunswick, where I practicethey're quite in high demand
and quite difficult to accessquickly, but we can do home
sleep apnea tests.
A lot of different companiesoffer these tests.
Typically they're free.
They'll measure your breathing,they'll measure your heart rate
, they'll measure your snoring,they'll measure your oxygen.
They'll measure your oxygen.
They'll measure your umsleeping position, because sleep

(10:31):
apnea tends to be worse formost people when laying flat on
your back, um.
And then they'll produce areport which is sent to the
doctor's office with either aninterpretation by the sleep
specialist or with the pure datathat the doctor himself could
interpret.
Basically, they'll measuresomething called the

(10:53):
apnea-hypopnea index or AHI,that's the number of apneas or
shallow breaths per hour.
Now, typically we would noticehaving less than 5 apneas per
hour in the normal person.
Mild sleep apnea would beconsidered 5 to 14 events per
hour.
Moderate sleep apnea would beconsidered 15 to about 30 apneas

(11:18):
per hour and severe sleep apneawould be over 30.
Now the treatment will dependon the severity and on the cause
.
The gold standard for moderateto severe obstructive sleep
apnea is a CPAP.
A CPAP also called a continuouspositive airway pressure.
It gently blows air either inyour nose or your mouth and it

(11:42):
keeps your airway open.
It's highly effective but notalways comfortable and people
need to wear a mask and it's notnecessarily sexy and a lot of
ego plays into it.
A lot of people they need weeksand sometimes even months to
get used to the machine and somepeople simply cannot get used

(12:03):
to it.
It's like walking against thewind.
It's loud, it's cumbersome anda lot of people, even with the
best of intentions, end upgiving up.
Other options for treatmentwill include oral appliances
like a retainer, or devices thatreposition your jaw.

(12:23):
You can consider positionaltherapy.
Basically, some people onlyhave sleep apnea in certain
sleeping positions.
Some people will only have iton their backs and if so, they
could maybe try positionaltherapy.
Back in the day.
They would tell you to put agolf shirt with a pocket in
front, put a tennis ball in it,turn it around.
So you simply are madeuncomfortable when trying to

(12:47):
sleep on your back becausethere's a tennis ball poking you
in the back, when trying tosleep on your back because
there's a tennis ball poking youin the back.
Now we have more intelligentdevices or belts that people, or
chest straps that people canwear where it vibrates when
you're exerting pressure on it,or pads that you can put on your
back.
Basically, it sends you asignal or a vibration to try to

(13:08):
wake you up.
If you sleep on your back, thatkeeps people on their stomachs
or on their sides and hopefullyhelps reduce positional
obstructive sleep apnea.
Now, in certain cases, peoplecan even have surgery.
I've had a few patients thathave had a uvulopalatinoplasty,
or UVP.
It's a surgery that basicallyopens up your soft palate and

(13:33):
basically creates more space inthe back of your throat, so
there's no obstruction ornarrowing when you're sleeping.
Although there's a milliondifferent things that we can do
for sleep apnea, we cannotforget lifestyle.
Just losing 10 to 15% of yourweight if you are overweight or

(13:54):
obese, can significantly improvesleep apnea.
Exercising, especially cardioand resistance training, can
help you reduce your rates ofsleep apnea, also increases
weight loss and will diminishthe negative impacts throughout
the day of living with sleepapnea.
Now you should also consideravoiding alcohol and sedatives

(14:15):
before going to bed and avoidgetting caught in that vicious
cycle where people who havesleep apnea are tired and
because they're tired, they feelthey don't sleep as well.
So they take sleeping pills orsedatives before going to bed or
drink alcohol to help them fallasleep, but that increases the

(14:36):
severity of their sleep apnea.
So although they claim to besleeping enough in terms of
quantity, they are getting verypoor quality of sleep because of
the frequent apneas and sothey're not making it in stage
N3 of deep sleep where physicalrepair happens.
They're not getting the rightproportions of REM sleep where

(14:58):
emotional repair happens, andthey often wake up irritable,
with low concentration, shortfuse, and they tend to snap and
become very angry very quickly.
Now some people will alsorecommend nasal sprays, nasal
strips or saline rinses forthose who are congested and are
breathing from their mouths.

(15:19):
Typically we put patients ontrials of either saline rinses
or nasal steroids for a fewmonths to see if that helps.
But we also want to focus onbetter sleep hygiene Now a
regular bedtime, no screens, afew hours before going to bed
and sleeping in a cool, darkroom.
Basically, what I want for mypatients is to synchronize their

(15:41):
circadian rhythms with theirsleep hormones, so I want them
to be less exposed to lightafter supper so that their
melatonin can naturally rise.
As melatonin cues your body forsleep and you unwind through
your sleep routine, cortisol andother stress hormones go down

(16:03):
and that helps you fall asleepand that simply leads to better
progression towards stage 1, 2,and 3, and then REM sleep.
You'll just get better sleep ifyour sleep hormones are aligned
.
Now, can a plant-based diet helpwith sleep apnea?

(16:25):
The short answer is absolutelyyes.
A whole food plant-based diethelps by promoting healthy
weight loss through anutrient-dense diet that's also
poor in calorie density, so it'sa high-volume diet where each
bite of food contains lesscalories than ultra-processed

(16:45):
foods or animal products.
So that helps promote healthyweight loss while having people
feel full and feel satisfiedwith the diet they're on.
Plant-based diets will alsohelp reduce inflammation, and we
know that high inflammation isoften caused by sleep apnea or

(17:07):
sleep deprivation.
Now, a healthy plant-based dietalso will contain a lot of
fiber and prebiotics.
These are compounds that feedyour gut bugs, and a healthy
microbiome will also reduceinflammation, improve insulin
sensitivity.
Basically, your gut bug willferment the fiber and feed off
of it and then reward you byproducing short-chain fatty

(17:29):
acids and other bioactivecompounds that get reabsorbed in
your circulation flowthroughout your body, cross the
blood-brain barrier and impactyour mood, concentration,
appetite and decision-making.
Basically, every singlefunction in your body is
improved by having healthy gutbugs.

(17:50):
Unlike fad diets, plant-baseddiets are much more sustainable
and they improve multiplepillars of health, not just
sleep apnea.
One study found that people whoate plant-based dietary patterns
had a lower risk of developingsleep apnea, likely because they
have lower BMIs, lower neck fatand lower systemic inflammation

(18:14):
.
So here's the game plan If yousnore, if you wake up gasping or
choking or feeling tired allday, nodding off, having
headaches in the morning, talkto your doctor, don't brush it
off.
Sleep apnea is a serious healthrisk and I've diagnosed it in a
whole bunch of differentpatients, from a very lean 6'2

(18:37):
patient that weighs 160 poundsto seeing someone who had an AHI
index of over 100.
Basically, he was never makingit to deep sleep, that's for
sure.
That patient was on fourmedications for their blood
pressure.
Even that didn't control it andthat's what kind of cued us

(19:01):
into checking for sleep apnea.
And not surprisingly, we foundvery severe sleep apnea and
still to this day, that patientstill is poorly compliant to a
CPAP.
But I mean, the goal is not toforce people to wear a CPAP if
they don't want to wear one.

(19:22):
The goal is to diagnose and atleast have answers that could
explain some of the symptoms ormetabolic impacts that people
have.
They sometimes will double downon lifestyle measures because
they're concerned about thehealth implications of living

(19:43):
with untreated obstructive sleepapnea.
Now, it's a serious condition.
It does pose a serious healthrisk, but it's treatable and
it's reversible and evenpreventable with lifestyle
change.
Diet, exercise and good sleephygiene can absolutely help, and
if you need a CPAP, it's not afailure, it's a great tool for

(20:07):
healing.
But that doesn't mean that youcan't set forth changes that may
help you get rid of it.
I have a patient that lost somuch weight that her sleep apnea
basically went away.
So there are a lot of successstories with people who change
their lifestyle.
I mean, it's not easy, but itis simple, right on.

(20:30):
So if you think you may sufferfrom sleep apnea or know someone
who does, or notice yourpartner gasping for air during
sleep, have them checked.
The test is non-invasive Formost people.
It's free.
You sleep with some machinerylinked to your body and to your

(20:51):
finger.
Your doctor gets a graph of thedata a few weeks after and then
you get a proper diagnosis.
So then we can decide what dowe do, and the treatment will
basically be determined by theseverity of the sleep apnea, and
the severity of the sleep apneawill typically be measured in

(21:12):
terms of apneas per hour, by anumber that can range from 0 to
5 if you don't have sleep apnea,5 to 15 for mild, 15 to 30 for
moderate and over 30 events perhour for severe sleep apnea.
Right on, I hope this makessense.

(21:33):
It is a very under-recognizedand under-diagnosed condition.
Talk to your doctor about it ifyou think this episode applies
to you.
One out of five people sufferfrom some form of sleep apnea
after the age of 40.
So get checked right on.
You have an awesome day.
Thanks for tuning in.

(21:54):
I hope to see you at the nextepisode.
Peace me.

(22:15):
On Facebook and Instagram at DrJules Cormier, and on YouTube
at Plant-Based Dr Jules.