This is the second post in a two-part series about women and sleep apnea.

Our first post, Why Women with Sleep Apnea are Overlooked, investigates the differences in how women experience and report sleep issues and directly addresses the stereotype that sleep apnea is a man's disease.

In this post, we look at the causes and effects of sleep apnea in women.

As it does in men, sleep apnea in women can cause serious health problems. The sleep disorder increases the risk of heart attack, stroke and early death. Also, the disorder may increase the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, obesity and other chronic health problems. Untreated sleep apnea can also lead to cognitive impairments, mood imbalances and metabolic problems.

This is the first post in a two-part series about women and sleep apnea.

The second post, The Health Hazards of Sleep Apnea in Women, looks at the causes and effects of sleep apnea in women.

In this post, we investigate the differences in how women experience and report sleep issues and directly addresses the stereotype that sleep apnea is a man's disease.

Ask the average physician to describe someone with sleep apnea and they will likely tell you that sufferers of this serious disorder tend to be middle-aged men who are also obese.

However, a large number of patients simply don't fit that profile. Thanks in part to this stereotype, women with sleep apnea are underdiagnosed and under-treated.

“There is the mistaken notion — not among sleep specialists, but among general practitioners who are the first line of defense — that sleep apnea is a disease of men,” says Said Mostafavi, M.D., the Chief Medical Officer for Advanced Sleep Medicine Services, Inc. and a sleep specialist. “When they see a patient who is a women, they don’t consider it. That is where the diagnosis gets missed.”

The American Diabetes Association estimates that nearly 30 million Americans live with diabetes.

Even more concerning, diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in the U.S. The condition can be caused by an autoimmune problem, where the body attacks the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin to keep blood sugar levels in check. This is known as type 1 diabetes. Or, the condition can be type 2 diabetes which arises from insulin resistance--where the body doesn’t respond to insulin and blood sugar remains at abnormal levels. Type 2 diabetes is more common and is not an autoimmune disease but rather a “lifestyle disease” once known as adult-onset or noninsulin-dependent diabetes. There is no cure for type 2 diabetes, but it can be managed and prevented.

Type 2 diabetes is often associated with obesity, high blood pressure and heart disease, but recent research has pinpointed another condition that is linked as well: sleep apnea. 

Sleep apnea can be frightening for the people who experience it as well as their partners, who watch as their slumbering companions suddenly stop breathing, choke and wake, sometimes dozens of times an hour. The worry is well-founded, because sleep apnea is more than a disturbance at night. Studies have shown that obstructive sleep apnea increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and even death due to cardiac arrest.