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Query: UMLS:C0037315 (sleep apnea)
 8,000 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

To determine if a history of snoring is a risk factor for brain infarction, I conducted a case-control study of risk factors for ischemic stroke using 177 consecutive male patients aged 16-60 (mean 49) years with acute brain infarction. For each patient I chose an age-matched (+/- 6 years) male control. Arterial hypertension, coronary heart disease, snoring (habitually or often), and heavy drinking (greater than 300 g/wk) were risk factors in the stepwise multiple logistic regression analysis. The odds ratio of snoring for brain infarction was 2.13. By McNemar's test this association increased strongly if a history of sleep apnea, excessive daytime sleepiness, and obesity were all present with snoring (odds ratio 8.00). My study indicates that snoring may be a risk factor for ischemic stroke, possibly because of the higher prevalence of an obstructive sleep apnea syndrome among snorers than nonsnorers.
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PMID:Snoring and the risk of ischemic brain infarction. 186 48

Previously we reported that abstaining chronic alcoholic men demonstrated significantly more nighttime hypoxemia than a control group. Here, we report a replication employing a larger sample of abstaining chronic alcoholics and a more appropriate control group than that used in the previous study. Forty-seven males, 48.4 +/- 1.7 years of age (mean +/- SEM), reporting 24.8 +/- 1.5 years of heavy alcohol use, comprised the abstaining alcohol group. Thirty-five age- and weight-matched males, 50.3 +/- 1.7 years were the control group. The alcohol group had significantly more nighttime oxygen desaturations below 90% than did the control group (16.9 +/- 3.3 vs. 6.2 +/- 1.4, F = 7.8, p less than 0.01), with significantly higher percentages of individuals in the alcohol group manifesting more than 10 or 20 oxygen desaturations below 90%. Regression analyses within the alcohol group revealed that severity of alcohol abuse, but not age, body mass index, days abstinent, or smoking significantly predicted levels of nighttime hypoxemia. These results confirm our original observation of increased nighttime hypoxemia in abstaining chronic alcoholic men and suggest that long-term alcohol abuse may be a risk factor for development of sleep apnea.
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PMID:Nighttime hypoxemia is increased in abstaining chronic alcoholic men. 217 70

Studies in experimental animals have shown varying and apparently opposite effects of alcohol on cardiac rhythm and conduction. Given acutely to non-alcoholic animals, ethanol may even have anti-arrhythmic properties whereas chronic administration clearly increases the animals' susceptibility to cardiac arrhythmias. Chronic heavy alcohol use has been incriminated in the genesis of cardiac arrhythmias in humans. The evidence has come from clinical observations, retrospective case-control studies, controlled studies of consecutive admissions for arrhythmias, and prospective epidemiological investigations. Furthermore, electrophysiological studies have shown that acute alcohol administration facilitates the induction of tachyarrhythmias in selected heavy drinkers. The role of alcohol appears particularly conspicuous in idiopathic atrial fibrillation. Occasionally, ventricular tachyarrhythmias have also been provoked by alcohol intake. Several lines of evidence suggest that heavy drinking increases the risk of sudden cardiac death with fatal arrhythmia as the most likely mechanism. According to epidemiological studies this effect appears most prominent in middle-aged men and is only partly explained by confounding traits such as smoking and social class. The basic arrhythmogenic effects of alcohol are still insufficiently delineated. Subclinical heart muscle injury from chronic heavy use may be instrumental in producing patchy delays in conduction. The hyperadrenergic state of drinking and withdrawal may also contribute, as may electrolyte abnormalities, impaired vagal heart rate control, repolarization abnormalities with prolonged QT intervals and worsening of myocardial ischaemia or sleep apnoea. Most of what we know about alcohol and arrhythmias relates to heavy drinking. The effect of social drinking on clinical arrhythmias in non-alcoholic cardiac patients needs to be addressed further.
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PMID:Alcohol, cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death. 994 88

Sleep apnea and related disorders contribute to disturbed sleep in abstinent alcoholics. In an earlier report from our group, sleep-disordered breathing was common and increased with age in a cohort of 75 abstinent alcoholics. We now report an extension of the previous work that includes studies of an additional 103 abstinent alcoholics undergoing treatment for alcoholism (total sample = 188) and a comparison group of 87 normal subjects. The presence and severity of sleep-disordered breathing was assessed with polysomnography. Among the alcoholics, sleep-disordered breathing (defined as 10 or more apneas plus hypopneas per hour of sleep) was present in 3% of 91 subjects under age 40, 17% of 83 subjects age 40 to 59, and 50% of 14 subjects age 60 or over. Subjects with sleep-disordered breathing were more likely to be male and had more severe sleep disruption and nocturnal hypoxemia and more complaints related to daytime sleepiness than subjects without sleep-disordered breathing. In a multiple linear regression analysis, age and body mass index were significant predictors of the presence of sleep-disordered breathing, whereas smoking history and duration of heavy drinking were not predictors after controlling for the effects of age and body mass index. Our findings suggest that sleep-disordered breathing contributes significantly to sleep disturbance in a substantial proportion of older alcoholics and that symptomatic sleep-disordered breathing increases with age in alcoholics. Sleep-disordered breathing, when combined with existing cardiovascular risk factors, may contribute to adverse health consequences in alcoholics.
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PMID:Sleep-disordered breathing in alcoholics. 1002 14