A new large study on Sunday claimed that rising temperatures increase the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
The study also found that, under the most likely climate change scenarios, the societal burden of OSA is expected to double in most countries over the next 75 years.
In addition to highlighting the critical importance of limiting global warming, the findings also emphasise the immediate need for strategies to alleviate the health and economic impacts of OSA as it becomes more common and severe, researchers said.
“This study really highlights the societal burden associated with the increase in OSA prevalence due to rising temperatures,” said Bastien Lechat, senior research fellow at FHMRI: Sleep Health at Flinders University.
Previous cross-sectional studies identified a link between ambient temperature and OSA severity. However, this is the first to explain and describe that connection in detail.
For the study, researchers analysed a consumer database of more than 116,000 worldwide users of an under-mattress sensor validated to estimate OSA severity.
The dataset included around 500 repeat measurements per user. Researchers then analysed this data against 24-hour ambient temperatures extracted from climate models.
Overall, higher temperatures were associated with a 45% increased likelihood of a sleeper experiencing OSA on a given night. However, these findings varied by region, with people in European countries seeing higher rates of OSA when temperatures rise than those in Australia and the United States.
“We were surprised by the magnitude of the association between ambient temperature and OSA severity,” Dr Lechat noted. Researchers then sought to estimate how burdensome the increase in OSA prevalence due to rising temperature is to society in terms of wellbeing and economic loss.
They found that any scenario that involved temperatures rising 2 degrees Celsius or higher would result in a 1.5-fold to 3-fold increase to the OSA burden by the year 2100.
They estimated that climate change has already increased the OSA burden by 50% to 100% since 2000. (IANS)
