Researchers have discovered that people with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) have a heightened risk of cardiovascular diseases due to reduced blood oxygen levels, primarily caused by interrupted breathing.
OSA has long been linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, and death.
However, this study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, provides further insights into the principal mechanism responsible for this correlation.
Study Details
The research team, led by Ali Azarbarzin, Ph.D., director of the Sleep Apnea Health Outcomes Research Group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, studied data from over 4,500 middle-aged and elderly adults.
These participants were part of the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study (MrOS) and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA).
The team aimed to identify specific OSA features that could explain why certain individuals are more prone to developing cardiovascular disease or related death than others.
Physiological attributes of OSA, such as hypoxic burden (a reduction in blood oxygen levels during sleep), ventilatory burden (breathing interruptions due to airway obstruction), and nighttime arousals (sudden awakenings from sleep due to interrupted breathing, causing potential spikes in blood pressure or heart rate) were evaluated.
For each observed reduction in blood oxygen levels, or hypoxic burden, a participant in the MESA cohort had a 45% increased associated risk for experiencing a primary cardiovascular event.
In the MrOS cohort, the associated increased risk was 13%. Airway obstruction, evaluated by a complete or partial closing of the airways, accounted for 38% of the observed risks in the MESA cohort and 12% in the MrOS cohort.
Implications
The results could potentially revolutionize the way sleep apnea is evaluated but need to be verified through additional studies.
“Understanding these mechanisms could change the way that sleep apnea clinical trials are designed and what is measured in clinical practice,” stated Marishka K. Brown, Ph.D., director of the National Center for Sleep Disorders Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH.
Notably, it’s estimated that nearly up to 425 million adults worldwide, and about 54 million in the U.S., suffer from OSA and are hence at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death globally.
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The study was published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
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