Sleep apnea will become more common and severe due to global warming, leading to increased health and economic burdens across the world, warn Australian scientists.
Rising temperatures increase the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and under the most likely climate change scenarios, the societal burden of OSA is expected to double in most countries over the next 75 years, according to new Flinders University research.
“Overall, we were surprised by the magnitude of the association between ambient temperature and OSA severity.
“Higher temperatures were associated with a 45% increased likelihood of a sleeper experiencing OSA on a given night,” said lead author and sleep expert, Dr Bastien Lechat from FHMRI Sleep Health.
While the study is one of the largest of its kind, it was skewed towards high socioeconomics countries and individuals, likely to have access to more favourable sleeping environments and air conditioning.
People in European countries saw higher rates of OSA when temperatures rose, than those in Australia and the United States, perhaps due to different rates of air conditioning usage, the researchers hypothesised.
The study is the first of its kind to outline how global warming is expected to affect breathing during sleep and impact the world’s health, wellbeing and economy. In Australia alone, the economic cost associated with poor sleep including sleep disorders like OSA has been estimated at $66 billion a year.
“This study helps us to understand how environmental factors like climate might affect health by investigating whether ambient temperatures influence the severity of OSA,” said Dr Lechat.
The research
The study analysed sleep data from over 116,000 people globally using an FDA-cleared under-mattress sensor to estimate the severity of OSA.
For each user, the sensor recorded around 500 separate nights of data. The researchers then matched this sleep data with detailed 24-hour temperature information sourced from climate models.
They conducted health economics modeling using disability adjusted life years, a measure employed by the World Health Organization that captures the combined impact of illness, injury, and premature mortality, to quantify the wellbeing and societal burden due to increased prevalence of OSA from rising temperatures under several projected climate scenarios.
“Using our modelling, we can estimate how burdensome the increase in OSA prevalence due to rising temperature is to society in terms of wellbeing and economic loss,” says Dr Lechat.
The increase in OSA prevalence in 2023 due to global warming was associated with a loss of approximately 800,000 healthy life years across the 29 countries studied.
“This number is similar to other medical conditions, such as bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s disease or chronic kidney diseases,” said Dr Lechat.
“Our findings highlight that without greater policy action to slow global warming, OSA burden may double by 2100 due to rising temperatures.”
In addition to providing further evidence of the major threat of climate change to human health and wellbeing, the study highlights the importance of developing effective interventions to diagnose and manage OSA.
“Higher rates of diagnosis and treatment will help us to manage and reduce the adverse health and productivity issues caused by climate related OSA.”
Global warming may increase the burden of obstructive sleep apnea is published in international journal, Nature Communications.
