Discovering a silent danger that threatens smokers while they sleep!
In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists from the Heart Research Institute (HRI) linked the amounts of nicotine in the blood to the amount of time oxygen is reduced during sleep.
Sleep apnea occurs when a person's throat and upper airway are partially or completely blocked during sleep, causing short periods in which breathing stops.
In a new research paper published in ESC Heart Failure, Heart Research Institute scientists found that increases in nicotine levels are associated with a 2.3-minute increase in the time spent on oxygen saturation below 90%.
One sign of severe sleep apnea is the time you spend with an oxygen saturation of less than 90%.
This means that for every cigarette a person smokes, they are likely to have "dangerously low" levels of oxygen, said lead researcher Dr. John O'Sullivan, from the Cardiovascular Diseases Group at the Heart Research Institute.
Dr O'Sullivan added: "People who spend more time with oxygen saturations below 90% end up dying of cardiovascular disease more than those who spend less time with oxygen saturations below 90%."
He explained: "We know that smoking is harmful to the heart, it is one of the main risks of heart attacks, and although smoking is known to lower the concentration of oxygen in the blood, the interaction between smoking and sleep apnea has not been measured. Using blood concentrations of the main metabolite of nicotine, we were able to first Once from determining the effect of smoking on nighttime oxygen concentrations in people with obstructive sleep apnea.
Dr. O'Sullivan continued, "A standard increase in levels of this metabolite by an additional 2.3 minutes was associated with an oxygen concentration of less than 90% in people with sleep apnea. A time in which the oxygen concentration is less than 90% is a well-established indicator of cardiovascular outcomes. bad".
Scientists know that sleep apnea and congestive heart failure commonly coexist, but with their unclear interaction, Dr. O'Sullivan's team used hundreds of small molecules called metabolites to understand this interaction.
Dr. O'Sullivan said: 'Believe it or not, severe heart failure, when the heart muscle can still pump blood but is stiff and cannot relax properly, is the most common form of heart failure today and we have virtually no treatment options. We measured molecules in the blood called Metabolites, we examined changes in these metabolites, and correlated them with the severity of sleep apnea."
Metabolism is a relatively new field of study looking at metabolites, which are components of our metabolism and play major roles in disease.
They can provide insight into how one disease relates to another, such as in this case the consequences of sleep apnea and heart failure.
Many of the metabolites are also major fuels for the working heart, and some are the heart's energy units.
The team studied the metabolites and lipids in 1,919 people from the Framingham Heart Study and 1,524 participants in the Women's Health Initiative, both US studies.
Dr. O'Sullivan said: "Accurate measurement of disease combined with blood metabolic levels is much more accurate than self-reported questionnaires, and this is one of the strengths of this study."
Although sleep apnea is very common (up to one in four adults), its consequences and interactions with other illnesses are still poorly understood.
There are almost no studies with sleep study data, heart failure data, and metabolic data in the same individuals.
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