They're called hypopneas, so they're not a full close-over.

And women are very sensitive to these disturbances.

So what happens is they're asleep, they'll have a hypopnea, for example, and it brings them straight out to a lighter stage of sleep where they're effectively waking up, although it's not consciously a lot of the time, but their oxygen levels haven't dropped.

And this is a key indicator that we look for in sleep studies is where does the oxygen levels drop to? Because that's a sign that people are stopping breathing.

But in women, it just disturbs their sleep quality.

In fact, it decimates it.

to the point where as it happens over and over again, sometimes if they wake up to a conscious level, then they struggle to get back to sleep.

So what would you want every woman listening to this to understand about sleep apnea and to take away?

So how does it feel or present differently for women that they need to be aware of?

Yeah, it's probably one of the biggest reasons that they actually get misdiagnosed, to be honest.

So the classic picture we all have is someone who snores loudly, stops breathing during night and falls asleep during the day.

So women can absolutely have those symptoms, but a lot of them don't.

Sleep studies have shown that women are more sensitive to respiratory events than men.

So like a man will go to sleep and have an apnea, which is where they stop breathing.

And they stay in that state until their oxygen levels drop and then they wake up to a choke and they sort of go back to sleep.

So what would you want every woman listening to this to understand about sleep apnea and to take away?

What can you tell us about that?

So when we're asleep, our brain goes through a series of cycles, and they're 90-minute cycles, so over that eight-hour period, and they're broken up of two different types of sleep.

So the first one is called non-REM sleep, or REM stands for rapid eye movement, and We get the majority of our non-REM sleep in the first four hours.

And in our non-REM sleep, this is where our brain's able to transfer all of the learnings and the short-term memory stuff that we've learned during the day to our long-term file storage.

So from the hippocampus into the cortex part of our brain.

And that also clears space in the short-term memory so that we can absorb and take on new memories for the next day as well.

Another thing that happens in the non-REM stage of sleep is that our brain flushes or washes out a lot of the plaques and toxins that can build up, as well as human growth hormone.

mean by that?

So to be clear, a GLP-1 is not a cure or a replacement for a CPAP machine then?

Correct.

It's not a magic bullet at all.

So with that study that I was talking about before, research found that actually the first 10% of body weight that people lose can contribute to a reduction severity of sort of 20%, up to 26% really as an average.

So if you think about how we measure the severity of sleep apnea, so sleep apnea is basically when we stop breathing in our sleep.

So that's measured as how many times per hour this happens.

It's called an AHI, apnea hypopnea index is what that stands for.

What should they do?

So to be clear, a GLP-1 is not a cure or a replacement for a CPAP machine then?

Correct.

It's not a magic bullet at all.

So with that study that I was talking about before, research found that actually the first 10% of body weight that people lose can contribute to a reduction severity of sort of 20%, up to 26% really as an average.

So if you think about how we measure the severity of sleep apnea, so sleep apnea is basically when we stop breathing in our sleep.

So that's measured as how many times per hour this happens.

It's called an AHI, apnea hypopnea index is what that stands for.

What should they do?

What can you tell us about that?

So when we're asleep, our brain goes through a series of cycles, and they're 90-minute cycles, so over that eight-hour period, and they're broken up of two different types of sleep.

So the first one is called non-REM sleep, or REM stands for rapid eye movement, and We get the majority of our non-REM sleep in the first four hours.

And in our non-REM sleep, this is where our brain's able to transfer all of the learnings and the short-term memory stuff that we've learned during the day to our long-term file storage.

So from the hippocampus into the cortex part of our brain.

And that also clears space in the short-term memory so that we can absorb and take on new memories for the next day as well.

Another thing that happens in the non-REM stage of sleep is that our brain flushes or washes out a lot of the plaques and toxins that can build up, as well as human growth hormone.

What do you mean by that?

And could you elaborate on that a little bit more? Exactly how will it affect us? How will someone who has sleep apnea feel both in the short and the long term?

Yeah, so as you mentioned on the intro there, many people that have got sleep apnea don't even realize that they've got sleep apnea.

And so during the night...

most people witness snoring or experience snoring or choking at night, and it's often not even the person that's got it that's witnessing it.

It's usually the partner.

But what actually happens is when we go to sleep, the brain shuts off the muscles around the throat, they relax, and as they start to narrow, the vibrations there can cause the snoring.

For people that have sleep apnea, like myself and millions of others around Australia, the airway actually closes over completely.

So if someone is listening to this and connecting a few dots about their own tiredness and thinking that it might be something that they're living with, but don't need to, what should they do as a first step?

And could you elaborate on that a little bit more? Exactly how will it affect us? How will someone who has sleep apnea feel both in the short and the long term?

Yes.

So as you mentioned on the intro, many people that have got sleep apnea don't even realize that they've got sleep apnea.

And so during the night, most people witness snoring or experience snoring or choking at night.

And it's often not even the person that's got it that's witnessing it.

It's usually the partner.

But what actually happens is when we go to sleep, the brain shuts off the muscles around the throat, they relax, and as they start to narrow, the vibrations there can cause the snoring.

So if someone is listening to this and connecting a few dots about their own tiredness and thinking that it might be something that they're living with, but don't need to, what should they do as a first step?