Sleep apnea 'increases risk of death'

Individuals with severe sleep apnea are three times more likely to die as a result of any cause than people without the condition, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The disorder causes frequent pauses in breathing while patients are asleep.

Research carried out by the University of Wisconsin-Madison looked at state and national death records of people with and without sleep apnea who had been involved in a study 18 years earlier.

About 19 per cent of those with severe sleep apnea had died in comparison to four per cent of those without sleep apnea.

Terry Young, principal investigator, said: "We found that both men and women with sleep apnea in the general population … had poorer survival compared with persons without sleep apnea, given equal BMI, age and sex."

This comes after researchers at the University of Pennsylvania announced they may have identified a sleep gene in fruit flies.

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