James K. Walsh, PhD, executive director of the Sleep Medicine and Research Center at St. Luke’s Hospital in St Louis, reported that patients using PROVENT Therapy had clinically meaningful and statistically significant decreases in the apnea-hypopnea index.
PROVENT Therapy was accepted by 80% of patients who had previously refused CPAP therapy or used CPAP fewer than 3 hours per night on average, a press release about the study stated. The study also found that PROVENT Therapy used improved blood oxygen saturation, and resulted in less daytime sleepiness as measured by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale.

“Current treatment options for obstructive sleep apnea are suboptimal. When used properly, CPAP essentially eliminates sleep apnea, but a large percentage of patients are noncompliant and express significant dissatisfaction with CPAP,” stated Walsh. “These data provide evidence that PROVENT is a treatment option for many patients who were unable to tolerate or unwilling to try CPAP therapy.”

Richard Berry, MD, from the University of Florida, reported results from another study. The results were from a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial of PROVENT versus a placebo (or sham) device. According to a press release about the findings, this study also showed that PROVENT Therapy significantly reduced AHI, improved oxygen saturation in the blood, as well as reduced daytime sleepiness when compared to the sham device.

“Many OSA patients are inadequately treated due to adherence or efficacy issues with current therapy. Alternative effective treatments for OSA are needed,” said Berry. “The results of the study suggest that PROVENT Therapy is an effective treatment alternative for a substantial percentage of OSA patients.”

Source: Sleep Review

Results indicate that OSA patients being treated with CPAP therapy outperformed untreated OSA patients on an overnight picture memory consolidation task, suggesting that CPAP is effective at recouping memory abilities that are impaired by OSA. CPAP patients correctly identified more photographs after one night of sleep.

“The most surprising result of our study, thus far, is the noticeable improvement in memory that CPAP patients experience,” said lead author Ammar Tahir of the Memory Laboratory in the department of psychology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. “These results suggest the success of CPAP therapy in regenerating obstructive sleep apnea patients’ memory deficits.”

The researchers also made the intriguing discovery that OSA patients who were using CPAP therapy performed better on the memory task than a control group of people who did not have OSA. This important finding could provide direction for future research to study the effect of CPAP therapy on brain function and memory processes.

The study involved a preliminary sample of 135 adults between the ages of 33 and 65 years who were divided into three groups. The experimental group comprised 78 people who were diagnosed with OSA and had been using CPAP therapy for three or more weeks. The baseline group was composed of 50 people who were diagnosed with OSA but had not been using CPAP. The control group had 30 people who tested negative for OSA. Data from additional participants in this ongoing study were not yet available when the abstract was published.

All participants were shown 20 photographs the night before their sleep was monitored by in-lab polysomnography. The next morning they were presented with 20 pairs of photographs. Each pair contained one photo that had been presented the previous night and one similar but previously unseen image. Participants had to determine which photo in each pair was the one that they had already viewed.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reports that OSA is a sleep-related breathing disorder that involves a decrease or complete halt in airflow despite an ongoing effort to breathe. It occurs when the muscles relax during sleep, causing soft tissue in the back of the throat to collapse and block the upper airway. This leads to partial reductions (hypopneas) and complete pauses (apneas) in breathing that can produce abrupt reductions in blood oxygen saturation and reduce blood flow to the brain. Most people with OSA snore loudly and frequently, and they often experience excessive daytime sleepiness.

The treatment of choice for OSA is CPAP therapy, which provides a steady stream of air through a mask that is worn during sleep. This airflow keeps the airway open to prevent pauses in breathing and restore normal oxygen levels. Help for OSA is available at more than 2,000 AASM-accredited sleep disorders centers across the U.S.

The SLEEP 2010 abstract supplement is available for download on the website of the journal SLEEP at http://www.journalsleep.org/ViewAbstractSupplement.aspx.

A joint venture of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society, the annual SLEEP meeting brings together an international body of more than 5,000 leading clinicians and scientists in the fields of sleep medicine and sleep research. At SLEEP 2010 more than 1,100 research abstract presentations will showcase new findings that contribute to the understanding of sleep and the effective diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders such as insomnia, narcolepsy and sleep apnea

Source: AASM via EurekAlert

People with OSA face several health challenges—at worst, they are at risk of dying of oxygen deprivation when breathing slows or stops during sleep. OSA can contribute to or be aggravated by high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and other systemic problems. Researchers led by Daniel G. Ezra, MD, MRCOphth, of Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, found the strong OSA-FES association in a case-controlled study of 102 patients tracked between 1995 and 2008; 102 matched controls were also tracked.

“About one-third (32 of 102) FES patients in our study also had OSA,” Ezra said. “The significant association of the two disorders was evident even when we considered and controlled for patients’ body-mass index (BMI, an indicator of whether obesity was a factor). FES is often considered a disease of overweight, middle-aged men, but our study did not find a patient cluster based on age, gender or BMI,” he added.

People with FES have rubbery-textured upper eyelids that may easily flip up during sleep, exposing the “whites of the eyes,” which can lead to dry, irritated eyes and/or discharge. The Moorfields research and other studies suggest that central nervous system arousal may be impaired in OSA suffers, so they do not wake up as people normally do when breathing slows or stops, or when the eyelid is subjected to extreme stress. People with OSA often preferentially sleep on one side, which could result in intense, repeated pressure on the eyelid on that side of the face. A combination of these factors may contribute to or cause FES. The Moorfields report notes that FES resolved in an OSA patient who was treated with a continuous positive airway pressure mask.

Source: Sleep Review

Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with an increased risk of stroke in middle-aged and older adults, especially men, according to new results from a landmark study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health. Overall, sleep apnea more than doubles the risk of stroke in men. Obstructive sleep apnea is a common disorder in which the upper airway is intermittently narrowed or blocked, disrupting sleep and breathing during sleep.

Researchers from the Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS) report that the risk of stroke appears in men with mild sleep apnea and rises with the severity of sleep apnea. Men with moderate to severe sleep apnea were nearly three times more likely to have a stroke than men without sleep apnea or with mild sleep apnea. The risk from sleep apnea is independent of other risk factors such as weight, high blood pressure, race, smoking, and diabetes.

They also report for the first time a link between sleep apnea and increased risk of stroke in women. Obstructive Sleep Apnea Hypopnea and Incident Stroke: The Sleep Heart Health Study, was published online March 25 ahead of print in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide. “Although scientists have uncovered several risk factors for stroke – such as age, high blood pressure and atrial fibrillation, and diabetes – there are still many cases in which the cause or contributing factors are unknown,” noted NHLBI Acting Director Susan B. Shurin, M.D. “This is the largest study to date to link sleep apnea with an increased risk of stroke. The time is right for researchers to study whether treating sleep apnea could prevent or delay stroke in some individuals.”

Conducted in nine medical centers across the United States, the SHHS is the largest and most comprehensive prospective, multi-center study on the risk of cardiovascular disease and other conditions related to sleep apnea. In the latest report, researchers studied stroke risk in 5,422 participants aged 40 years and older without a history of stroke. At the start of the study, participants performed a standard at-home sleep test, which determined whether they had sleep apnea and, if so, the severity of the sleep apnea.

Researchers followed the participants for an average of about nine years. They report that during the study, 193 participants had a stroke – 85 men (of 2,462 men enrolled) and 108 women (out of 2,960 enrolled).

After adjusting for several cardiovascular risk factors, the researchers found that the effect of sleep apnea on stroke risk was stronger in men than in women. In men, a progressive increase in stroke risk was observed as sleep apnea severity increased from mild levels to moderate to severe levels. In women, however, the increased risk of stroke was significant only with severe levels of sleep apnea.

The researchers suggest that the differences between men and women might be because men are more likely to develop sleep apnea at younger ages. Therefore, they tend to have untreated sleep apnea for longer periods of time than women. “It’s possible that the stroke risk is related to cumulative effects of sleep apnea adversely influencing health over many years,” said Susan Redline, M.D., MPH, professor of medicine, pediatrics, and epidemiology and biostatistics, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and lead author of the paper.

“Our findings provide compelling evidence that obstructive sleep apnea is a risk factor for stroke, especially in men,” noted Redline. “Overall, the increased risk of stroke in men with sleep apnea is comparable to adding 10 years to a man’s age. Importantly, we found that increased stroke risk in men occurs even with relatively mild levels of sleep apnea.”

“Research on the effects of sleep apnea not only increases our understanding of how lapses of breathing during sleep affects our health and well being, but it can also provide important insight into how cardiovascular problems such as stroke and high blood pressure develop,” noted Michael J. Twery, Ph.D., director of the NIH National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, an office administered by the NHLBI.

The new results support earlier findings that have linked sleep apnea to stroke risk. SHHS researchers have also reported that untreated sleep apnea is associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, irregular heartbeats, heart failure, and death from any cause. Other studies have also linked untreated sleep apnea with overweight and obesity and diabetes. It is also linked to excessive daytime sleepiness, which lowers performance in the workplace and at school, and increases the risk of injuries and death from drowsy driving and other accidents.

More than 12 million American adults are believed to have sleep apnea, and most are not diagnosed or treated. Treatments to restore regular breathing during sleep include mouthpieces, surgery, and breathing devices, such as continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP. In people who are overweight or obese, weight loss can also help.

These treatments can help improve breathing and reduce the severity of symptoms such as loud snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness, thereby improving sleep-related quality of life and performance at work or in school. Randomized clinical trials to test whether treating sleep apnea lowers the risk of stroke, other cardiovascular diseases, or death are needed.

“We now have abundant evidence that sleep apnea is associated with cardiovascular risk factors and diseases. The next logical step is to determine if treating sleep apnea can lower a person’s risk of these leading killers,” said Redline. “With stimulus funds, our research group is now developing the additional research and resources to begin answering this important question.”

Through funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the NHLBI is awarding approximately $4.4 million to Redline to conduct the first NIH-funded comparative effectiveness study of treatments for sleep apnea. In the two-year multi-center pilot study, SHHS researchers and others will compare the cardiovascular effects of adding either CPAP or supplemental oxygen during sleep to standard care in patients with moderate to severe sleep apnea who are at high risk for cardiovascular disease events such as heart attack or stroke.

The SHHS draws on a resource of existing, well‑characterized and established cohort studies of cardiovascular and lung diseases supported by the NHLBI. A cohort is a well‑defined group of participants who share a common background or characteristic and are being followed for an extended length of time. For this study, SHHS researchers add assessment of sleep to data collection in ongoing studies including the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study sites in Washington County, Md., and Minneapolis; the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) sites in Sacramento, Calif., Washington County, Md., and Pittsburgh; the Framingham Offspring and Omni cohorts in Framingham, Mass.; the Health and Environment and Tucson Epidemiologic Study cohorts in Tucson, Ariz.; the Strong Heart Study sites in Arizona, Oklahoma, and South Dakota; a Reading Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; and the University of Washington in Seattle (Coordinating Center 1994‑1999). The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health serves as the Coordinating Center.

Source: NHLBI Communications Office, NIH/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

In an article published in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of Sleep Research, the researchers hypothesize that the intermittent lack of oxygen (hypoxia) that occurs with sleep apnea actually provides protection to elderly patients’ cardiovascular systems. This would explain, they say, why elderly patients with moderate sleep apnea show significantly lower mortality rate compared with the general population. The findings were based on a study of 611 individuals with a media age of 70, and a five-year follow-up period.

Behind this phenomenon, say the researchers, is a protein in the blood known as VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor), which is created during hypoxia, and which is responsible for the growth of new blood vessels. The study found that the ability of individuals to produce VEGF varied widely among patients, and individuals who could produce a large amount when exposed to hypoxia had more blood vessels around their hearts when compared to individuals who could not. The resulting reservoir of blood, they believe, provides protection in the case of heart attack.

Researchers at Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany recently confirmed the Lavies’ hypothesis. In the most recent issue of Chest, the Journal of the American College of Chest Physicians, Stephan Steiner and colleagues from the Department of Cardiology reported that patients with sleep apnea had significantly more blood vessels around their hearts than patients without sleep apnea – even though there were no differences between the groups in age, weight, heart condition or use of medication.

“If confirmed, these findings may have important clinical implications regarding treatment of sleep apnea syndrome,” say Prof. and Dr. Lavie in an editorial that accompanied the Chest article. “Moreover, such findings, if combined with individual gene analysis, may provide new treatment strategies for cardiovascular protection.”

Sleep apnea is characterized by interruptions in breathing during sleep that last 10 seconds or more, at least five times per hour. They cause repeated interruptions of sleep and decreased oxygen levels in the blood, and have been linked with cardiovascular diseases, especially hypertension. The condition affects up to 10 percent of adult men, who in most cases are not aware that their breathing stops during sleep but who complain of chronic fatigue, excessive sleepiness, tendency to doze off during the day and loud, intermittent snoring.

Source: American Technion Society

Westchester, Ill. –A study in the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) report a significantly lower frequency of nightmares than patients with mild or no sleep apnea, indicating that OSA suppresses the cognitive experience of nightmare recall.

Results show that the percent of participants with frequent nightmare recall decreased linearly as sleep apnea severity increased. Frequent nightmare recall, occurring at least weekly, was reported by 71.4 percent of people who did not have OSA and 43.2 percent of patients with mild OSA, which was defined as an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) of five to less than 15 breathing pauses per hour of sleep. The rate of frequent nightmare recall decreased to 29.9 percent in patients with moderate OSA (AHI of 15 to less than 30) and 20.6 percent in patients with severe OSA (AHI of 30 or more). Sleep apnea severity in people who reported infrequent nightmare recall (mean AHI of 40.3) was significantly higher than in those who frequently recalled nightmares (mean AHI of 24.6).

According to principal investigator Jim Pagel, M.S., M.D., associate clinical professor at the University of Colorado Medical School system and director of the Sleep Disorders Center of Southern Colorado in Pueblo, the decline in frequency of nightmare recall may be attributed to the sleep fragmentation that is caused by OSA. This leads to a reduction in the amount of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is the sleep stage when nightmares generally occur.

“The results were somewhat surprising, since nightmares are frequently reported by patients with sleep apnea,” said Pagel. “It is plausible that patients who successfully utilize continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy see an increase in the frequency of nightmares, as treatment increases the amount of REM sleep per night.”

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, nightmares are coherent dream sequences that seem real and become increasingly more disturbing as they unfold. Emotions usually involve anxiety, fear or terror, and dream content most often focuses on imminent physical danger or other distressing themes. Nightmares may result in post-awakening anxiety and difficulty returning to sleep. Approximately 50 percent to 85 percent of adults report having at least an occasional nightmare, and about two percent to eight percent of the general population have a current problem with nightmares.

This retrospective study involved 393 consecutive patients who were evaluated by overnight polysomnography at the Sleep Disorders Center of Southern Colorado over a two-year period. Their mean age was 50.5 years with a range of 13 to 82 years, and 67 percent of participants were male. The mean AHI was 34.9, indicating a high frequency of severe OSA.

Questions concerning dream and nightmare recall frequency were incorporated into a general sleep questionnaire. Dream and nightmare recall were classified as infrequent when reported once a month or less, or frequent when reported at least weekly. About 52 percent (205 people) reported frequent dream recall, and 34 percent (134 people) reported frequent nightmare recall. Analysis confirmed that dream recall and nightmare recall were not associated.

The authors noted that the study clearly demonstrates that increasingly severe OSA has a much greater negative effect on reported nightmare recall frequency than it does on reported dream recall.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, OSA is a sleep-related breathing disorder that involves a decrease or complete halt in airflow despite an ongoing effort to breathe. It occurs when the muscles relax during sleep, causing soft tissue in the back of the throat to collapse and block the upper airway. This leads to partial reductions (hypopneas) and complete pauses (apneas) in breathing that can produce abrupt reductions in blood oxygen saturation. Most people with OSA snore loudly and frequently, and they often experience excessive daytime sleepiness. The treatment of choice for OSA is CPAP therapy, which provides a steady stream of air through a mask that is worn during sleep. This airflow keeps the airway open to prevent pauses in breathing and restore normal oxygen levels.

Source: Kelly Wagner, American Academy of Sleep Medicine

“We found that in the tonsil tissues of children with OSA, certain genes and gene networks were over expressed,” said David Gozal, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics, who led the study. “We believe that the results of this gene overexpression is increased proliferation of the adenotonsillar tissues, which in turn can cause partial or complete obstruction of the upper airways during sleep.”

The findings have been published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In the United States, two to three percent of children have OSA. The current standard of treatment is surgical removal on the tonsils, but surgery is not without risks and potential complications. Currently, about 600,000 tonsillectomies are performed each year in children, primarily to treat OSA.

Dr. Gozal and colleagues have been studying potential non-surgical alternatives to treat OSA in children. To identify potential pharmacological targets, they recruited 18 children with OSA and 18 age-, gender-, and ethnicity-matched children with recurrent tonsillar infections (RI), all of who underwent surgery to have their tonsils removed.

The tonsil tissue from each subject was analyzed for relative expression of the 44,000 known genes in the human genome. The researchers then further analyzed the gene pathways to determine which changes may represent differences with a high likelihood of impact on cellular proliferation.

“We wanted to find the most important and functionally pertinent genes, those with the most connectivity,” explained Dr. Gozal. “We identified 47 genes and among those, two specific genes, both phosphatases, which are known to be very important at regulating communication in cells. Then we looked at the expression of the phosphatase protein and found that children with OSA have higher level of phosphatases in the tonsils.” In particular, they focused on one protein called phosphoserine phosphatase (PSPH) that was expressed in children with OSA, but almost never expressed in the children with RI.

“We asked, ‘What happens if we block this phosphatase?’” said Dr. Gozal. “Is this a potential target for pharmacological therapy?” Indeed, they found that introducing calyculin, a phosphatase inhibitor, reduced the cell proliferation and increased programmed cell death, or apoptosis, a process by which cells self-regulate, in the tonsils of OSA patients. “Together, these observations suggest that PSPH is a logical therapeutic target in reversing adenotonsillar enlargement in pediatric OSA,” Dr. Gozal wrote.

“The next direction is to identify if selective clones of proliferating cells that may be affected by PSPH or by another of the discovered target genes with the intent of developing a non-surgical alternative treatment to surgery for OSA in children,” said Dr. Gozal. “If there is a subgroup of cells that have specific markers, then we may be able to develop a therapy that could be specifically targeted to these cells.”

“Phosphatases such as PSPH are an exciting prospective target for therapy in children with OSA,” said Dr. Gozal. “We believe if we had effective non-surgical alternatives to tonsillectomies, it would be of great benefit.”

Source: Keely Savoie, American Thoracic Society

Results indicate that in newly diagnosed men with severe OSA, gray matter concentrations were significantly decreased in multiple brain areas, including limbic structures, prefrontal cortices and the cerebellum. Optimized voxel-based morphometry, an automated processing technique for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), was used to characterize structural differences in gray matter by examining the entire brain, rather than a particular region.

“Gray matter” refers to the cerebral cortex, where most information processing in the brain takes place. It is a layer of tissue that coats the surface of the cerebrum and the cerebellum and is gray in appearance, lacking the myelin insulation that makes most other parts of the brain appear to be white.

Principal investigator Seung Bong Hong, MD, PhD, professor of neurology at the Samsung Medical Center in Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea, said the study emphasizes the importance of diagnosing and effectively treating severe OSA.

“Poor sleep quality and progressive brain damage induced by OSA could be responsible for poor memory, emotional problems, decreased cognitive functioning and increased cardiovascular disturbances,” said Hong. “The use of continuous positive airway pressure – CPAP – therapy could stop further progression of brain damage in patients with severe OSA.”

The study involved 36 male OSA patients with an average age of 44.7 years and 31 healthy, male, age-matched controls. Sleep was evaluated by overnight polysomnography. The OSA patients had a mean apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) of 52.5 partial and complete breathing pauses per hour of sleep; an AHI of more than 30 is considered severe OSA. Patients with OSA also had more awakenings from sleep and a more fragmented sleep structure than controls.

Surprisingly, gray matter concentration was decreased in OSA patients without significant changes in gray matter volume. According to the authors, frequent episodes of nocturnal hypoxemia and hypercarbia induce vasodilation and disturbances in the autoregulation of the brains of OSA patients. Therefore, changes in the brain volume of OSA patients may be obscured by increased cerebral blood volume or whole brain water content from OSA-induced changes in autoregulation.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, OSA is a sleep-related breathing disorder that involves a decrease or complete halt in airflow despite an ongoing effort to breathe. It occurs when the muscles relax during sleep, causing soft tissue in the back of the throat to collapse and block the upper airway. This leads to partial reductions (hypopneas) and complete pauses (apneas) in breathing that can produce abrupt reductions in blood oxygen saturation. Most people with OSA snore loudly and frequently, and they often experience excessive daytime sleepiness. The treatment of choice for OSA is CPAP therapy, which provides a steady stream of air through a mask that is worn during sleep. This airflow keeps the airway open to prevent pauses in breathing and restore normal oxygen levels.

The authors noted that more research is needed to determine if gray matter concentration loss occurs as a consequence of sleep apnea, or if preexisting abnormalities may contribute to the development of the disorder.

The study: “Reduced Brain Gray Matter Concentration in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome”

Source: Kelly Wagner, American Academy of Sleep Medicine

The study “demonstrates for the first time that there is a clear, graded, inverse relationship between OSA severity and glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes,” wrote lead author, Renee S. Aronsohn, M.D., instructor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

The study also confirmed other reports that undiagnosed OSA is very common among patients with type 2 diabetes, indicating that it is largely unrecognized additional medical risk factor in these patients.

The findings have been published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Dr. Aronsohn and colleagues consecutively recruited patients with type 2 diabetes from outpatient clinics to participate in the study. The participants were interviewed to assess their diabetes history, medical history and medications, and level of physical activity. Height and weight measurements were also taken, and each participant’s sleep/wake cycles were monitored for five days using wrist actigraphy and self-reported sleep logs. Finally, participants underwent an overnight polysomnography test for OSA , and glucose control was assessed by obtaining a blood sample for hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) measurement, the main clinical marker of glycemic control in diabetes

In total, 60 patients were included in the study’s final analysis. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of participants had OSA, but only five had been previously evaluated for the disease, and none were undergoing treatment. Of the study sample, 38 percent (23) were classified as having mild OSA, 25 percent (15) had moderate OSA and the 13 percent (8) had severe OSA.

The researchers found that more severe OSA was associated with poorer glucose control, implying a role more severe diabetes with potentially more complications. Relative to patients without OSA, the presence of mild, moderate or severe OSA significantly increased mean adjusted HbA1c values by 1.49 percent, 1.93 percent, and 3.69 percent respectively. These effect sizes are comparable to those of widely used hypoglycemic medications, meaning that having OSA may negate the beneficial effects of anti-diabetic drugs.

“Our findings have important clinical implications as they support the hypothesis that reducing the severity of OSA may improve glycemic control,” said Dr. Aronsohn. “Thus effective treatment of OSA may represent a novel and non-pharmacologic intervention in the management of type 2 diabetes.”

“Physicians who manage patients with type 2 diabetes should screen their patients for OSA,” commented John Heffner, M.D., past president of the ATS. “At least 80 percent of their patients, if properly screened and studied, will be found to have OSA, which is a treatable condition. Treating their breathing problem might improve their glycemic control and long-term complications from diabetes.”

Source: American Thoracic Society (ATS)

“People who use ecstasy need to know that this drug damages the brain and can cause immediate and dangerous problems such as sleep apnea,” study author Dr. Una McCann, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a news release.

McCann and colleagues conducted sleep tests on 71 people who’d used ecstasy (MDMA) and 62 people who’d never used the illegal drug. Ecstasy users had a more than eight-fold increased risk of sleep apnea compared to non-users. Mild sleep apnea rates were similar in both groups (21 percent of ecstasy users and 27 percent of non-users), but only ecstasy users had moderate (13 percent) or severe (1 percent) sleep apnea.

The longer a person used ecstasy, the more sleep apnea episodes they experienced, said the researchers. They also found that ecstasy use was a greater risk factor for sleep apnea than obesity.

“Our findings may be explained by how ecstasy damages neurons related to serotonin, a chemical in the brain that is involved in sleep regulation and breathing, among other important functions,” McCann said. “Sleep apnea in itself is dangerous, but it can also contribute to thinking problems in people who use ecstasy because chronic sleep disruption is known to have a negative effect on how a person functions during the daytime.”

The study is published in the Dec. 2 online issue of the journal Neurology.

Source: HealthDay News