Presence of Sleep Apnea Could Extend Life in the Elderly

A new study has found that elderly patients with mild or moderate obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) showed significantly lower mortality than the general population.

Researchers at Heinrich Heine University (Düsseldorf, Germany) hypothesized that the intermittent phases of hypoxia in OSA syndrome (OSAS) might be accompanied by an increased coronary collateral vessel (CCV) development in patients with total coronary occlusion. They then examined 34 patients with total coronary occlusions and classified them according to the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), wherein an AHI value higher than 10 events per hour was classified as OSAS. CCVs were scored by visual analysis and were analyzed according to the Cohen and Rentrop grading system.

The researchers found that patients with OSAS had significantly more heart collaterals than patients without, even though there were no differences between the groups in age, gender, the presence of hypertension, smoking, or diabetes mellitus. There was no difference in left ventricular systolic function or left ventricular end-diastolic pressure. The study was published in the March 1, 2010, issue of Chest.

"If confirmed, these findings may have important clinical implications regarding treatment of the syndrome,” commented Professor Peretz Lavie, M.D., Ph.D., of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israell) faculty of medicine, in an accompanying editorial. "Moreover, such findings – if combined with individual gene analysis – may provide new treatment strategies for cardiovascular protection.”

Sleep apnea patients have high blood levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a chemical signal produced by cells that stimulates the growth of new blood vessels to restore the oxygen supply to tissues when blood circulation is inadequate; it's production is triggered by a drop in blood oxygen levels. Over-expression of VEGF can cause vascular disease in the retina of the eye and other parts of the body, and can also contribute to cancer growth, as cancers that express VEGF are able to grow and metastasize.

Related Links:
Heinrich Heine University
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology