Healthy, restful sleep at night is a joy that very few other human experiences can match. The hours can vary from 3-4 hours in the case of political leaders, celebrities and others, to the full eight hours that many people require. But the essential condition is that sleep should be uninterrupted, said Dr Lancelot Pinto, a respirologist with Hinduja National Hospital, Mumbai.

Less drastic consequences are seen in a much larger population: significant numbers of people with sleep disorders are seen to develop diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and other such problems. Doctors, however, are not convinced that sleep disturbances are the reason for these lifestyle diseases.

They prefer to call them as co-morbidities, that is called co-existing medical conditions. A rather unexpected indicator of OSA is frequency of night time urination, which one would normally associate with prostate enlargement in elderly men. “But the strongest causal relationship is between Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and high blood pressure,”  he said.

While sleep disturbances can happen for many reasons, among the commonest is Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)–intermittent stoppage of breathing when sleeping.

OSA could develop for other reasons as well–a large neck or a fat deposit at the base of the tongue, or if the chin is placed far behind the upper jaw. In children, however, there are a few additional causes of OSA, says Dr Pratibha Singhal, a pulmonologist with Bombay Hospital and Reliance H N Hospital, Mumbai.

Although OSA is so common across the world, and has such wide ranging effects all over the body, as much as 80% of patients in India are probably undiagnosed. “In our culture, snoring is considered as a sign of good sleep, rather than a condition that demands medical attention,” says Dr Manvir Bhatia, Director of Sleep Apnea India, the first Sleep Laboratory to be accredited by the Indian Society for Sleep Research (ISSR).

Awareness about OSA among both doctors and patients is lower than what it should be, says Dr Pratibha Singhal, because of which a lot of patients with diabetes, high blood pressure or heart disease, would rather go to a cardiologist than undergo a Sleep Study. And a lot of OSA cases could thus be missed.

However, the situation is now beginning to change, she adds, since some GPs have also started ordering Sleep studies in the past few years.

“Now, I am quite refreshed after just about six hours of sleep at night, and remain alert throughout the day. I can wake up at 5 am without any difficulty and have that much more available to do whatever I want,” he says. His longstanding problem of the urge to pass urine every night has also vanished, Goyal adds.