THE SEVERAL and it seems increasing incidents of sudden death of people who were not reported as ill, and medical claims of increasing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) of the heart, lungs, liver,kidneys, as well as conditions of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, is cause for concern from all quarters.
The why is the mystery.
One possibility is a little-known condition called sleep apnoea – you can google it. And since many if not most of us snore, it is surely a common condition, which makes its seeming deadly effects and relation to the NCDs all the more worrisome.
In Barbados, there are only three, as far as I know, specialists in the “sleep disorder” field and no one, as far as I know, has linked apnoea (from the Greek apnoia/breathlessness) with the NCDs. Yet, I think, it’s staring us in the face as it were, since the pauses in breathing caused by apnoea during sleep (calculated – at worst – at up to 30 or more times an hour), damages all the organs and memory of our body – hence Alzheimer’s, fatigue and rising blood pressure, liver, kidney and lymph gland problems.
There are also physical, psychological and psychedelic effects, resulting from the fatigue one constantly and increasingly undergoes with this condition.
To consider
It begins, really, from the beginning. God created man and breathed life into him via his nostrils (see Genesis 2:7, KJV). Not through his mouth. With sleep apnoea you are breathing through your mouth (your nostrils increasingly clogged to facilitate this); and this kinetic abnormality is what causes the heart to stop beating during sleep.
In other words, you are dead and will remain so unless the brain can revive you – repeated enormous unconscious effort and stress which wakes us up tired with a taste of like sulphur in the mouth and in fact miraculously returned from the dead – until the day or night that the brain can no longer perform its resurrection.
– KAMAU BRATHWAITE
