Weight & Sleep | Video

Sarahbeth Ackerman | 1/22/2013

Sleep plays a very important role in our daily routine. Sometimes even with eight hours of sleep, you could still feel tired.

"Most of the time, patients come in complaining of symptoms. Complaining of being sleepy during the day, complain of being fatigued, and tired during the day. If you sleep 8 hours and wake up feeling tired it means the quality of sleep is not good," said Neurology Physician Dr. Bahram Kordlar.

According to Trinity Hospital`s Sleep Center, studies have shown that people who are obese, could experience symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

"Obstructive sleep apnea could be mild, could be severe. Less than five apneas per hour is normal, we all could have one or two apneas per hour," said Kordlar.

Apnea is classified as not breathing for 10 seconds or longer throughout your sleep cycle. This is mainly seen in people who have a body mass index higher than 30.

"If you are obese your chance of having this syndrome is more than 50 percent," said Kordlar.

Fatty tissue can form around the throat which can push the windpipe closer together. This can make it harder to breathe when sleeping.

To diagnosis sleep apnea syndrome, it`s best to conduct a sleep study. When doctors suspect their patients have a sleeping disorder, they send them to the sleep clinic where they can be reviewed for a full night`s sleep.

"The patients come in about eight and nine o`clock to sleep and we hook up lots of different sensors and monitors to them so we can record their sleep. We also are monitoring them with a camera so we can see if they have any abnormal activities at night," said Sleep Center Coordinator Jutta Schmidt.

Kordlar says that sleep apnea can go away if you lose weight.

If the condition does not go away with weight loss, there are different treatment options such as CPAP which is a machine that can give air into the patient’s windpipes while sleeping.

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