This accounts for some 6 million people, with men outnumbering women 8 to 1. Researchers are not certain why the typical sleep apnea patient is a middle-aged overweight man, but they think it may have something to do with hormones and neck size. Scharf explains the neck connection. In young men, the neck is more muscular. When they get older, out of shape, the muscle shrinks and fatty deposits come in.
Muscle is heavy.
When it loses its tone, the airway collapses. In one study, researchers at the Osler Chest Unit of Churchill Hospital in Oxford, England, queried 900 male patients between the ages of 35 and 65. Measurements taken included weight, height, neck circumference, and resting arterial oxygen saturation, a measure of how much oxygen is getting into the bloodstream. Weight was implicated in a study of more than 1,000 sleep apnea patients at the Stanford Sleep Disorder Clinic. Premenopausal women are more protected than older women.