Ten Health Problems Caused by Sleep Disorders

If you snore, if you don't get enough sleep, or if you have sleep apnea, you may have one of these health problems as well. Sleep is nourishment for the mind and spirit. If you can find a way to fix your sleep problems, you may be able to fix your health problems as well.

1. Diabetes. Recent studies have shown that diabetes and sleep apnea -- periodic halting of breathing during sleep -- are closely related. How close? People who have sleep apnea are nine times as likely as others to have diabetes. Nine times! Moreover, treating sleep apnea usually results in improved sugar control in the body, in many people even leading to an elimination of diabetes symptoms.

2. COPD. Though whether sleep disturbances contribute to the development of COPD or the other way around, most people with COPD also sleep poorly. Treating the sleeping problems seems to help with the symptoms of COPD. (This link has not been examined closely yet, but you'll probably see more research on it in the future.

3. High blood pressure. The Mayo Clinic found that younger people (under 60) who sleep less than 6 hours a night are twice as likely to have chronic high blood pressure. The theory is that because inadequate sleep leads to a 24 hour period of increased blood pressure and heart rate, people who do this on a regular basis stress their symptoms enough to give themselves high blood pressure.

4. Immune system impairment. In a Stanford University study, researchers found that fruit flies prevented from sleeping got sick much more often. This confirmed observations that people who are sleep deprived seem to get sick more often. Researchers think this is because when you disrupt your sleep cycle through lack of sleep, poor sleep, or "swing shift" sleeping, you also disrupt your circadian rhythms, and your immune system depends on this rhythm to know when to turn on and shut off.

5. Obesity. Researchers from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey corrected for every other variable they could find, and determined that people who sleep less than 5 hours a night are 73% more likely to become obese. They also found that leptin and ghrelin, two hormones associated with how your body stores fat, were disrupted when you don't get enough sleep.

6. Accelerated aging. In a report from The Lancet reprinted here, the effects of inadequate sleep were very similar to the effects of aging, particularly with the fluctuations of many types of hormones. That's probably why sleep deprivation leads to #7,

7. Memory problems. In a study at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers found that mice who had at least five hours of sleep immediately after learning a task retained it much better than mice who were kept awake. They think that the five hours immediately after you learn something are critical for allowing your brain to properly store and organize everything. If you don't get that rest, your brain loses all the information you've put into medium-term memory, much like a computer crashing before you've saved.

8. Depression. Another Stanford University study shows that people who are depressed are about five times as likely to have sleep apnea than others. This may settle a chicken-or-egg question: does insomnia cause depression or does depression cause insomnia? It looks like poor sleep causes depression, since apnea is generally physiological rather than mood-related.

9. Narcolepsy. This disorder causes its sufferers to experience excessive sleepiness during the day, sometimes falling asleep literally on their feet, or collapsing when the body shuts down. I worked with a narcoleptic long ago, and she came in one morning late after having fallen asleep at a red light. Narcolepsy is closely related to sleep disturbances, as you might guess.

10. Car crashes. According to the National Sleep Foundation, at least 1 in 5 car accidents is caused by a sleepy driver. While accidents are not really a health issue, they typically occur secondary to poor brain functioning, whether from distraction, alcohol, drugs, or lack of sleep.

For most people, eight hours of undisturbed sleep is enough. Older people generally sleep less, but it might be good for them to try to get that eight hours regardless. If you are not getting good sleep, talk to your doctor about help. Even if you have something else causing your poor sleep and not the other way around, treating your sleep symptoms will improve your overall health.