Mayo Clinic taps AI to help narrow the gender gap in diagnosing life-threatening sleep apnea
Studies show that women aren't getting enough sleep. There is a medical reason: an underdiagnosis of sleep apnea in women that not only results in fatigue, but heart damage and, in extreme cases, even death.
An important side effect that shows up in women with sleep apnea is depression. Women and their partners often just brush it off as a combination of life's pressures.
"Women have very busy schedules. They're often multitasking, they're they're looking after the kids, doing a job, taking care of the home, and so they have that sense of, yeah, I'm tired, but I should be tired because I'm doing all these things," Mayo Clinic Dr. Virend Somers said.
Researchers say that sleep apnea is often left undiagnosed among women in part because their male partners haven't helped catch the symptoms. Somers says men are more often diagnosed with sleep apnea after their wives notice and complain about their snoring, but the inverse is often not true for women.
"Women don't have that privilege. Men tend to sleep through the night and not notice that their wives may be snoring, maybe not terribly loudly, but certainly having apneic episodes," Somers said.
Somers utilized artificial intelligence to analyze over 11,000 electrocardiograms. The AI analysis saw indicators in women's ECGs that humans and regular computers could not. Somers recommends women go to their doctors and ask for an overnight oximeter monitor if they are worried they might have sleep apnea.
"A little thing you put on your finger or your ear, and you go to sleep at night, and that monitors your oxygen throughout the night. And if you have cyclic periods during the night where your oxygen falls sporadically, then you very likely have significant sleep apnea," Somers said.
Sleep apnea can be reversed, in part, with early and consistent treatment such as a CPAP machine. Studies show CPAP machines can improve heart function and reduce heart muscle thickness.