Short answer: Yes!
It’s no secret that there are a wide variety of health concerns for overweight patients, including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and many other common medical ailments. It is not as well known how an unhealthy body weight might affect a patient’s sleep.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is crucial in maintaining healthy sleep patterns. Being overweight or underweight can lead to several common sleep disorders that may cause any number of other health problems. Getting 8 consecutive hours of restful, restorative sleep is an important part of a full-body health approach that may help lower your risk of many of the health conditions noted above.
How Does Being Overweight Affect Sleep?
The most common sleep-related issue that overweight patients have to worry about is poor breathing. Trouble breathing is a common complaint in obese patients because there are often fat deposits hidden along airways, around the neck, and even under the tongue which can block air from travelling normally in narrow airways. Another risk for overweight patients is excessive weight on a patient’s chest and stomach which can strain chest muscles used for breathing.
This is why obesity is the leading cause of adult sleep apnea, a condition in which patients experience irregular breathing while they sleep. This condition may also cause any number of other health complications if left untreated. Obesity also increases a patient’s risk of experiencing restless leg syndrome (RLS) and insomnia.
Even disregarding the medical risks associated with sleep disorders, poor sleep patterns can negatively impact your overall energy and wellness in your day-to-day life. In cases of slight weight gain negatively impacting sleep quality, small lifestyle changes could help regulate a patient’s weight and improve quality of life.
Each of the sleep disorders listed above comes with its own risks and treatment plans that should be discussed with a sleep medicine specialist. If you think that you or a loved one might be suffering from any weight-related sleep disorders, it is important to seek medical attention immediately.
Obesity and Sleep Apnea
Obesity is the leading cause of adult sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that causes irregular breathing while sleeping because of repetitive upper airway blockage. This condition may lead to serious health concerns, including excessive daytime drowsiness, low blood pressure, irregular heart beat, and an increased risk of heart attack or stroke.
Adult sleep apnea in overweight patients is likely caused by a layer of fat deposits in a person’s neck called pharyngeal fat. This fat deposit may cause blockages in the upper airway during the night, when a person’s airway is typically relaxed. It can also be caused by excessive fat build-up on and around a person’s chest, compressing the muscles of the chest wall and limiting lung capacity.
Watch out for these warning signs of sleep apnea:
- Loud snoring
- Waking up short of breath
- Waking up with a dry mouth
- Morning headaches
- Trouble staying asleep at night
- Daytime drowsiness
Could Poor Sleep Lead to Weight Gain?
Certain sleep disorders, including those associated with obesity, can also lead to excessive weight gain, making many patients’ journey to a restful night sleep more difficult. Chronic sleep deprivation caused by any number of sleep disorders can lead to hormonal imbalances which could negatively impact a patient’s metabolic rate. This could affect the way their body processes and uses energy gained from food and drink and cause weight gain.
Chronic lack of high quality sleep could also impact a patient’s energy levels. A person who is often drowsy throughout the day will likely not be as physically active as a healthy body requires, leading to unwanted weight gain.
In extreme cases, poor sleep patterns could affect a patient’s ability to regulate insulin and lead to type 2 diabetes. Developing diabetes presents a huge health risk to patients not being treated for their insulin resistance. Even after a treatment plan has been put in place by a medical professional, a diabetes diagnosis represents major lifestyle changes for the patient.
Sleep Disorders in Underweight Patients
The most common issue that underweight patients have is anemia. Anemia is not a sleep disorder, but a condition in which a patient does not have enough red blood cells to carry enough oxygen to the tissues. This condition is very common in underweight people, and is typically caused by low iron levels. It affects many aspects of a patient’s life, including developing healthy sleep patterns.
Extremely low body weight and a diagnosis of anemia can increase the chances that a person experiences chronic secondary insomnia, which is insomnia caused by a medical condition. In this case, many of the side effects of anemia continue throughout the night, including night chills, chest pain, and headaches, and make getting and staying asleep very difficult.
Underweight people are also more likely to experience RLS than healthy weight individuals. People with low iron levels throughout their body also experience signs of iron deficiency in the brain. RLS is a neurological condition that could be triggered by low iron levels in the brain. Because of this, patients with anemia are considerably more likely to develop RLS.
Risks of Extreme Weight Loss
While weight gain may cause many health problems, it is important to go about losing the excess weight in mindful and healthy ways. Losing more than 1-3 pounds per week can open you up to even more health problems without relieving many of the others effectively.
Extreme and fast weight loss can cause digestive problems, cause acid reflux which could damage stomach and esophageal lining, and increase your risk of many different mental illnesses. If you are experiencing extreme weight loss by means of an eating disorder, there is even more damaging and permanent harm that can be done to the body.
In extreme cases, excessive hunger from strict diets can lead to sleep-related eating disorders. In these cases, patients could unknowingly seek out food while still asleep. This is a dangerous condition because they are just as likely to eat something inedible or toxic as they are to eat something that will not harm them.
If you or a loved one shows signs of unhealthy weight loss, it is crucial that you seek medical attention immediately.
Treatment
In any of these cases, seeing a sleep medicine specialist can increase your chances of overcoming or managing these sleep disorders. Quality sleep is crucial to restoring energy levels and preparing your body for the upcoming day.
Weight loss can be an invaluable treatment plan for many medical conditions, including sleep-related ones. Your body works hard, and sometimes we have to work hard to keep up! With strategic lifestyle changes and medications that help mediate the symptoms of each condition, a sleep medicine specialist can help you treat the problem at the source. If you are ready to reach your weight loss goal, a sleep medicine professional can help you create a plan to succeed and improve your mental and physical health!
Gingras Sleep Medicine, located in Charlotte and Concord, North Carolina, is a sleep medicine clinic specializing in sleep disorders and related conditions for patients of all ages. Founder and Medical Director, Dr. Jeannine Gingras is a triple board-certified sleep medicine specialist who has been studying and treating sleep disorders for decades! She gets to know each patient individually, ensuring she has a clear picture of their issues and concerns, carefully determines the causes, and creates a personalized treatment plan to get them the relief they need.
Call (704) 944-0562 today or make an appointment today to start your journey towards healthy sleep!