Journal of sleep research
-
Journal of sleep research · Apr 2014
Insomnia as a risk factor for ill health: results from the large population-based prospective HUNT Study in Norway.
Insomnia co-occurs with many health problems, but less is known about the prospective associations. The aim of the current study was to investigate if insomnia predicts cumulative incidence of mental and physical conditions. Prospective population-based data from the two last Nord-Trøndelag Health Studies (HUNT2 in 1995–97 and HUNT3 in 2006–08), comprising 24 715 people in the working population, were used to study insomnia as a risk factor for incidence of physical and mental conditions. ⋯ Insomnia was also associated significantly with incidence of angina, hypertension, obesity and stroke in the crude analyses, but not after adjusting for confounders. We conclude that insomnia predicts cumulative incidence of several physical and mental conditions. These results may have important clinical implications, and whether or not treatment of insomnia would have a preventive value for both physical and mental conditions should be studied further.
-
Journal of sleep research · Apr 2014
Are we missing a simple treatment for most adult sleep apnea patients? The avoidance of the supine sleep position.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder which has been gradually accepted as an important cause of increased morbidity and mortality. The treatment of moderate-severe OSA has improved dramatically since the introduction of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices; however, the adherence of patients to CPAP treatment is relatively low. Adherence appears to be even worse in patients with mild or asymptomatic OSA. ⋯ In this paper we intend to argue that positional therapy, i.e., avoidance of the supine posture during sleep, could represent a valuable therapy mainly for mild-moderate OSA. Considering the fact that the vast majority of mild-moderate OSA patients are positional patients (between 65 and 87%), positional therapy may be a simple, cheap and effective solution for them. High-quality research regarding this issue is needed to evaluate the real effectiveness of this mode of therapy.