How Blood Pressure Is Reduced In People With Sleep Apnea?

People with sleep apnea are likely to have blood vessel injury that may cause high blood pressure in daytime and can lead to heart disease.

The endothelial function is compared in healthy obese people who have sleep apnea with people who do not have sleep apnea.

Endothelium is a thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels and regulate blood pressure by dilating vessels.

High blood pressure can damage the endothelium and it can lead to elevation of blood pressure damaging the vessels further.

Sleep apnea is an individual factor to damage the endothelium. Sleep apnea directly affects blood pressure by the following factors:

• Blood pressure fluctuates suddenly and widely in response to episodes of sleep apnea and hypopnea.
• These fluctuations possibly are due to a sudden surge in the sympathetic nervous system, which controls responses of involuntary muscles in blood vessels and heart and play a role in sleep apnea.
• These fluctuations can lead to blood vessel constriction and overtime can lead to high blood pressure and heart damage.

One-third of sleep apnea patients who were diagnosed with high blood pressure actually had white coat hypertension (WCH), a condition characterized by increase in blood pressure during the visit to doctor’s office and normal blood pressure during all the other situations.

Patients with sleep apnea and WCH had more difficult time falling asleep and long periods of wakefulness after falling asleep than sleep apnea patients with normal blood pressure.

Breathing mask decreases blood pressure in people with sleep apnea:

Treating high blood pressure improves endothelial function. Patients can reduce or eliminate the problem of sleep apnea by losing weight, avoiding alcohol, and sleeping on their side.

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea who receive air through mask while they are asleep have reduced blood pressure levels. In sleep apnea, the upper airway narrows and collapses during sleep. More than half of the people with sleep apnea have high blood pressure and it does not fall during sleep as it occurs in most of the people.

The most commonly used treatment for sleep apnea is nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which delivers air through the mask while the patient is asleep.

Patients who are using CPAP are monitored for blood pressure for 24 hours with ambulatory blood pressure monitor. It is a machine connected to the torso of the patient that attaches to the arm cuff. The cuff automatically inflates and deflates to measure the blood pressure of the patient.

Patients who receive CPAP treatment had significant reduction in blood pressure during daytime and nighttime. CPAP proved successful in many cases and provided good night sleep. It also prevented daytime sleepiness.