research published<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0JAMA Neurology. <\/p>\nThe study, led by Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland VA Health Care System, examined electronic health records covering more than 11 million US military veterans who received care through the Department of Veterans Affairs between 1999 and 2022.<\/p>\n
Parkinson\u2019s is a neurodegenerative condition that affects an estimated 1 million people nationwide, with the risk rising incrementally year by year for people over age 60. The new study suggests a heightened risk of people with untreated sleep apnea developing Parkinson\u2019s over the long-term.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not at all a guarantee that you\u2019re going to get Parkinson\u2019s, but it significantly increases the chances,\u201d said co-author\u00a0Gregory Scott, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology in the OHSU School of Medicine and a pathologist for at the VA Portland.<\/p>\n
Even after adjusting to rule out confounding factors like obesity, age and high blood pressure, the study found a strong link between untreated sleep apnea and Parkinson\u2019s. Among millions of people with sleep apnea, those who didn\u2019t treat the condition with CPAP were nearly twice as likely to have Parkinson\u2019s as those who did.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you stop breathing and oxygen is not at a normal level, your neurons are probably not functioning at a normal level either,\u201d said lead author\u00a0Lee Neilson, M.D., assistant professor of neurology at OHSU and a staff neurologist at the Portland VA. \u201cAdd that up night after night, year after year, and it may explain why fixing the problem by using CPAP may build in some resilience against neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neilson said he intends to prioritize the health benefits of sound sleep with his patients, especially in view of the research revealing an elevated risk of Parkinson\u2019s. \u201cI think it will change my practice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Scott noted that even though some people with sleep apnea resist treatment with CPAP, he pointed to the experience of many veterans who swear by it. \u201cThe Veterans who use their CPAP love it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re telling other people about it. They feel better, they\u2019re less tired. Perhaps if others know about this reduction in risk of Parkinson\u2019s disease, it will further convince people with sleep apnea to give CPAP a try.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: Oregon Health & Science University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An analysis of 11 million VA electronic health records suggests OSA is an independent risk factor for development…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60,89659,89660],"class_list":["post-159957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sleep-apneas","tag-sleep-medicine-adult"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}