https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sleep-apnea-is-different-for-women/

Picture, if you will, your typical sleep apnea sufferer. Chances are he is middle-aged and overweight and snores like a freight train. Note the male pronoun. Twenty-five years ago experts believed that the condition, in which breathing is disrupted during sleep, was about 10 times as common in men as in women. Better-quality studies have since reduced that ratio to roughly three to one, but as more data come to light, it is becoming clearer that sleep apnea—and the broader category known as sleep disordered breathing—simply looks a little different in women. And that suggests it is often overlooked.

Sleep apnea is a concern because it raises the risk of heart attacks, hypertension, arrhythmias, insulin resistance, strokes and accidents that result from daytime sleepiness. Put simply, gasping for breath at night and not giving your body a thorough rest puts a lot of pressure on the cardiovascular system, raises adrenaline levels and ignites inflammation. Doctors diagnose apnea with a sleep test, often done at home, that measures your apnea-hypopnea index. This index reflects the average number of times an hour that you have an episode lasting at least 10 seconds during which breathing stops (apnea) or becomes so deficient that blood oxygen levels fall by 3 or 4 percent or more (hypopnea). Fewer than five such episodes an hour is considered normal. Five to 15 is mild sleep apnea, 15 to 30 is moderate and more than 30 is severe.