Eat This to Treat Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is usually blamed on unhealthy lifestyles like being overweight, having high blood pressure and blood sugars, and eating unhealthily.

Further, the solution is to lose weight and use a breathing machine while sleeping.

However, a new study published in Nutrients turns all this traditional wisdom on its head and identifies the most unexpected culprit and cure for sleep apnea.

The authors of the study employed a method called Mendelian randomization in their study. This study type uses genes to make sure they identify a causal relationship correctly.

A Mendelian randomization study finds a gene that influences whether you will have a specific gut bacterium. If researchers find that a large number of people with the gene linked to that bacterium have sleep apnea, they can be more confident that that bacterium causes sleep apnea.

This is because the only systematic difference between people who have that gene and those who don’t is that bacterium, influenced by their genes, and no other influencing factors like diet.

They analyzed genes associated with 196 gut bacteria groups and 83 metabolites, using data from European populations and the Human Metabolome Database. They then checked who went on to develop sleep apnea.

The study revealed fascinating findings.

1. The bacterial families Subdoligranulum and Ruminococcaceae were the strongest risk factors for sleep apnea.

2. Coprococcus2, Eggerthella, and Eubacterium were protective against this sleep related breathing disorder.

These findings are terribly confusing. Subdoligranulum and Ruminococcaceae are usually considered to have positive health effects, and are plentiful in the guts of people who eat lots of fiber.

Eggerthella, on the other hand, is abundant in the guts of people who eat lots of saturated and trans fats, and has been linked with inflammatory bowel disease and obesity.

The relationship between blood metabolites and sleep apnea was equally confusing.

1. 3-dehydrocarnitine, epiandrosterone sulfate, and leucine were risk factors for sleep apnea.

2. Betaine and gamma-glutamylvaline protected against it.

Epiandrosterone sulfate comes from healthy plant foods, while gamma-glutamylvaline is usually considered to be unhealthy and high in people with diabetes and heart disease.

So, what on earth can we learn about healthy dieting from this surprising study?

Since both the potentially harmful bacteria and the protective gut bacteria and metabolites come from a variety of healthy and unhealthy foods, the best we can do is to eat a variety of different foods, instead of focusing on one food group or type of food in our diets.

This means that people who eat specialized diets that avoid, for example, sugar, grains, or vitamins found in vegetables are on the wrong track.

A healthy set of gut bacteria emerges from a varied diet, because the gut bacteria are balanced by different food groups that balance out each other.

So, if you only enjoy a few types of food, such as meat, rice, or potatoes, and a substantial percentage of your diet consists of just those three foods, you put yourself at risk of health conditions like sleep apnea.

End of confusion: the fact is that everyone can heal their sleep apnea using simple throat exercises, explained here, that open up your breathing passages day and night…