![]() The obesity epidemic is thought to be increasing the incidence of sleep apnea, though thin individuals can also be afflicted. men and 6% of women aged 30 to 70-are at higher risk for depression, cognitive impairment, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and premature death. In addition to enduring daytime sleepiness, sleep apnea sufferers-some 13% of U.S. The search for sleep apnea treatments has become pressing as its prevalence has grown, as widespread noncompliance with CPAP has been charted and as researchers have documented the disease's long-term dangers. They note that the pilot study, although double-blind and randomized, included just a small number of patients who took the drug combination for just 1 night. Mason, Veasey, and other sleep apnea experts caution, however, that the findings are extremely preliminary. But if this combination proves safe and effective in larger trials, it could free many sleep apnea patients from the current gold-standard remedy, the cumbersome "continuous positive airway pressure" (CPAP) machines that blow air into the throat to keep the airway open, but require users to wear a mask and headgear at night. The trial turned up one potentially problematic finding: Although the drug combination reduced patients' AHIs, their number of subconscious arousals-the subtle awakenings that leave patients exhausted-remained high. It's "a great first step," adds Martina Mason, a sleep physician at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, U.K., who co-authored a 2013 review of 30 previous, underwhelming drug trials. ![]() That's actually unbelievably exciting," says Sigrid Veasey of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), a physician-researcher who studies sleep. "We've never had a drug combination, or any sort of a drug, that consistently improved everybody's AHI. Patients' blood oxygenation also improved strikingly, the group found. In the 15 patients with the highest AHIs, the median reduction was 74%-and every patient experienced at least a 50% reduction, Andrew Wellman and Luigi Taranto-Montemurro at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reported today at the European Respiratory Society's International Congress in Paris. In a study of 20 patients, the scientists found that a combination of atomoxetine and oxybutynin, taken as two pills at bedtime, reduced patients' frequency of airway obstruction-called the apnea-hypopnea index, or AHI-from a median of 28.5 hourly obstructions on placebo to 7.5 on the pills. Now, a new drug combination has reawakened hopes.Ī team led by researchers in Boston has identified a pair of medications-approved for other uses and with solid safety records-that appear to work in concert during sleep to activate the muscles that dilate the upper airway. During decades of lab experiments and dozens of clinical trials, scientists have searched in vain for drugs to defeat obstructive sleep apnea, the risky and increasingly prevalent condition in which a person's upper airway repeatedly collapses during sleep, causing them to briefly stop breathing dozens or hundreds of times each night.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |