Study ties sleep apnea to depression
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-19 13:38 NEW YORK - Sleep-related
breathing disorder has a robust association with depression, according to
results of a long-term study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Based on their findings, the investigators suggest that medical treatment
with CPAP, for example, or behavioral modification of sleep-related breathing
disorder, with weight loss, for example, "may help mitigate or prevent
depressive symptoms" in these patients.
The findings are from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study, which began
recruitment in 1988 of subjects between 30 and 60 years old. The subjects were
scheduled to undergo overnight sleep studies in a laboratory every 4 years. The
study cohort was comprised of 1408 participants with 3202 sleep studies.
Dr. Paul E. Peppard and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
observed significant dose-response trends of increasing risk of depression with
increasing sleep-related breathing disorder severity.
After adjusting for age and gender, the odds ratio of depression when
compared with no breathing disorder was 1.6 for minimal sleep-related breathing
disorder, 2.0 for mild sleep-related breathing disorder, and 2.5 for moderate or
worse sleep-related breathing disorder.
Fully adjusted longitudinal data showed that a two-category transition -- for
example, from no sleep-related breathing disorder to mild sleep-related
breathing disorder -- was associated with an odds ratio for depression of 3.3.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine September 18, 2006.
|
