Sleep Apnea and Your Heart: What You Need to Know This American Heart Month

February brings Valentine’s Day hearts, but it’s also American Heart Month—a time to focus on cardiovascular health and the factors that influence it. While most people associate heart disease risk with diet, exercise, and smoking, there’s a critical factor that often goes overlooked: sleep apnea.

The connection between obstructive sleep apnea and heart disease is one of the most significant discoveries in sleep medicine over the past two decades. At Julie Zweig, MD Integrative Sleep & ENT in Alpharetta, Dr. Zweig sees patients every day whose cardiovascular symptoms are directly connected to what’s happening—or not happening—while they sleep.

The Dangerous Cycle That Happens Every Night

To understand why sleep apnea poses such a serious threat to your heart, you need to understand what occurs during an apnea event.

When you have obstructive sleep apnea, the soft tissues in your throat collapse during sleep, blocking your airway. Breathing stops—sometimes for 10 seconds, sometimes for a minute or longer. Your oxygen levels plummet. Your brain, sensing danger, triggers a stress response that partially wakes you, causing you to gasp for air. Your airway reopens, you breathe again, and the cycle repeats.

For someone with moderate to severe sleep apnea, this can happen 30 times per hour or more. That’s 30 times every hour that your body experiences oxygen deprivation, surges of stress hormones, and dramatic spikes in blood pressure—all while you’re supposedly resting.

How Sleep Apnea Damages Your Cardiovascular System

The repeated stress of untreated sleep apnea takes a measurable toll on heart health through several mechanisms.

Chronic Hypertension: Each time breathing stops, blood pressure spikes dramatically. Over time, this repeated stress prevents blood pressure from dropping to normal levels during sleep—a pattern called “non-dipping” that’s associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Studies show that people with moderate to severe sleep apnea are significantly more likely to develop treatment-resistant hypertension.

Heart Rhythm Disturbances: The oxygen fluctuations and stress responses of sleep apnea can trigger irregular heart rhythms, particularly atrial fibrillation (AFib). Research indicates that sleep apnea patients have a four-times greater risk of developing AFib compared to those without the condition. AFib itself increases stroke risk substantially.
Structural Heart Changes: The repeated strain on the heart can cause the left ventricle to thicken and stiffen over time, reducing the heart’s pumping efficiency. This can progress to heart failure if sleep apnea remains untreated.

Accelerated Atherosclerosis: The inflammation and oxidative stress caused by chronic oxygen deprivation promotes the buildup of plaque in arteries, accelerating atherosclerosis and increasing heart attack risk.

Increased Stroke Risk: Between the blood pressure fluctuations, AFib risk, and accelerated atherosclerosis, untreated sleep apnea significantly increases the likelihood of stroke.

Warning Signs You Shouldn’t Ignore

Many people with sleep apnea don’t realize they have it—they only know they’re tired, or their partner complains about snoring. But certain symptoms warrant evaluation, especially if you already have cardiovascular concerns:

• Loud, chronic snoring that disrupts your partner’s sleep
• Witnessed breathing pauses during sleep
• Gasping or choking that wakes you up
• Morning headaches that improve as the day progresses
• Excessive daytime sleepiness despite adequate time in bed
• Difficulty concentrating or memory problems
• Irritability or mood changes
• Waking frequently to urinate at night
• Treatment-resistant high blood pressure despite multiple medications

If you have existing heart disease, heart failure, or atrial fibrillation and haven’t been evaluated for sleep apnea, this assessment should be a priority. The conditions are so frequently connected that many cardiologists now routinely screen heart patients for sleep disorders.

The Good News: Treatment Makes a Difference

Here’s what makes this conversation hopeful rather than frightening: treating sleep apnea can significantly improve cardiovascular outcomes. When the airway stays open and oxygen levels remain stable through the night, blood pressure drops, heart rhythm stabilizes, and the inflammatory cascade that damages blood vessels slows dramatically.

Dr. Julie Zweig takes a holistic, integrative approach to sleep apnea treatment, recognizing that the best solution varies from patient to patient. Treatment options include:

• CPAP Therapy: Continuous positive airway pressure remains the gold standard for moderate to severe sleep apnea. Modern CPAP machines are quieter and more comfortable than earlier versions, with mask options that accommodate different sleep positions and preferences.
• Oral Appliances: For patients who can’t tolerate CPAP or have mild to moderate sleep apnea, custom-fitted oral appliances can reposition the jaw and tongue to keep the airway open. These devices look similar to a sports mouthguard and offer a portable, non-invasive alternative.
• Palate Coblation: This minimally invasive procedure uses radiofrequency energy to reduce tissue in the soft palate, improving airflow without the recovery time of traditional surgery.
• Weight Management: Excess weight, particularly around the neck, contributes significantly to airway collapse. Dr. Zweig offers Zepbound (tirzepatide), now approved for patients with sleep apnea, as part of a comprehensive weight management approach that can reduce sleep apnea severity while improving overall health.
• Addressing Underlying Causes: As an ENT specialist, Dr. Zweig can identify and treat structural issues—like enlarged turbinates, deviated septum, or nasal obstruction—that contribute to airway collapse during sleep.

Why an Integrative Approach Matters

What sets Dr. Zweig’s practice apart is her understanding that sleep apnea doesn’t exist in isolation. As a dual board-certified ENT and sleep medicine specialist, she recognizes the connections between your airway anatomy, your sleep quality, your hormonal balance, and your overall wellness.

A patient with sleep apnea may also have nasal obstruction that makes CPAP intolerable, hormonal imbalances that affect weight and energy, or inflammatory conditions that worsen both sleep and cardiovascular health. Addressing only the sleep apnea without considering these related factors often produces incomplete results.

Dr. Zweig’s integrative and functional medicine approach looks at the whole picture—testing for underlying conditions, optimizing hormone levels, addressing inflammation, and creating a comprehensive treatment plan that improves not just your sleep, but your overall health trajectory.

Take Your Heart Health Seriously This February

If you snore heavily, wake up tired despite spending enough time in bed, or have been told you stop breathing during sleep, don’t dismiss these symptoms. And if you’re already managing heart disease, high blood pressure, or atrial fibrillation, ask yourself whether sleep apnea might be an unaddressed piece of the puzzle.

Getting evaluated is straightforward. Sleep studies can now be conducted in the comfort of your own home, making diagnosis more convenient than ever. And treatment options have evolved far beyond the cumbersome CPAP machines of decades past.

This American Heart Month, give your heart the gift of better sleep. The connection between your nighttime breathing and your cardiovascular health is too important to ignore.

Schedule Your Sleep Evaluation at Julie Zweig, MD Integrative Sleep & ENT

Dr. Julie Zweig has provided exceptional integrative and functional medicine to patients in the greater Atlanta area for over 20 years. As a dual board-certified ENT surgeon and sleep medicine specialist—and a Castle Connolly Top Doctor—she brings rare expertise to diagnosing and treating the complex relationship between sleep disorders and overall health.

If you’re concerned about sleep apnea and its effects on your heart, contact our Alpharetta office to schedule a consultation.

Your heart works hard for you every day. Make sure your sleep is supporting it, not sabotaging it.