Sawing logs at night can do more than make your bed buddy want to smother you with a pillow. According to new research published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, obstructive sleep apnea—a common cause of snoring in which breathing periodically stops throughout the night, robbing your brain of oxygen—may also reduce your ability to kick it up a notch during a run, swim, bike ride, or cardio class.
To examine how sleep apnea affects people's exercise capacity, researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine put 15 men and women with moderate to severe sleep apnea and 19 with mild or no apnea on exercise bikes. The participants then pedaled at higher and higher resistance levels until they couldn't pedal any more.
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The researchers used the exercise test to help calculate each person's VO2 max—the maximum amount of oxygen one can both breathe in and use as fuel during strenuous exercise. They found that people with moderate to severe sleep apnea had, on average, a VO2 max that was 14 percent lower than those with mild to no apnea. What’s more, the more people stopped breathing throughout the night—a.k.a. the more severe their sleep apnea—the lower their VO2 max tended to be.
Why it matters for your workout: Your VO2 max directly correlates with your aerobic fitness capacity. The higher your number, the longer and harder you can perform aerobic exercise like running and cycling—and vice versa.
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And while being overweight can raise the risk of sleep apnea, researchers note that the reduction in VO2 max seen in this study was independent of body mass index and weight. Basically, sleep apnea can lower your VO2 max even if you're at a healthy weight. Researchers believe sleep apnea directly lowers VO2 max by causing structural changes within muscle tissue.
Only two percent of women in the United States have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, but research suggests that up to half of women may suffer from the sleeping disorder, which has also been linked to memory loss, heart disease, and early death. So, if you're a snorer, talk to your doctor about getting evaluated for sleep apnea. If you do have the condition, correct treatment can help you breathe better during the night and during exercise.
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