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Published on: October 18, 2024
Emerging co-morbidities of obstructive sleep apnea: cognition, kidney disease, and cancer
Nadia Gildeh1, Panagis Drakatos1, Sean Higgins1
1Sleep and Brain Plasticity Centre, Department of Neuroimaging, IOPPN, King's College and Imperial College, London, UK;; Sleep Disorders Centre, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
Abstract:
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) causes daytime fatigue and sleepiness, and has an established relationship with cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Recent years have seen the emergence of an evidence base linking OSA with an increased risk of degenerative neurological disease and associated cognitive impairment, an accelerated rate of decline in kidney function with an increased risk of clinically significant chronic kidney disease (CKD), and with a significantly higher rate of cancer incidence and death. This review evaluates the evidence base linking OSA with these seemingly unrelated co-morbidities, and explores potential mechanistic links underpinning their development in patients with OSA, including intermittent hypoxia (IH), sleep fragmentation, sympathetic excitation, and immune dysregulation.
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