JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Many studies have reported that black individuals undergoing dialysis survive longer than those who are white. This observation is paradoxical given racial disparities in access to and quality of care, and is inconsistent with observed lower survival among black patients with chronic kidney disease. We hypothesized that age and the competing risk of transplantation modify survival differences by race. ⋯ Overall, among dialysis patients in the United States, there was a lower risk of death for black patients compared with their white counterparts. However, the commonly cited survival advantage for black dialysis patients applies only to older adults, and those younger than 50 years have a higher risk of death.
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Sleep-disordered breathing (characterized by recurrent arousals from sleep and intermittent hypoxemia) is common among older adults. Cross-sectional studies have linked sleep-disordered breathing to poor cognition; however, it remains unclear whether sleep-disordered breathing precedes cognitive impairment in older adults. ⋯ Among older women, those with sleep-disordered breathing compared with those without sleep-disordered breathing had an increased risk of developing cognitive impairment.