Tag Archives: sleep apnea

Sleep apnea linked to COVID-19 outcomes

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Sleep apnea tied to severe COVID-19

The risk of severe illness from COVID-19 is higher in people with obstructive sleep apnea and other breathing problems that cause oxygen levels to drop during sleep, researchers say. They tracked 5,402 adults with these problems and found that roughly a third of them eventually tested posted for the coronavirus. While periodic episodes of not-breathing while asleep – leading to low oxygen levels, or hypoxia – did not increase people’s chances of being infected, sleep-related hypoxia did increase infected patients’ odds of needing to be hospitalized or dying from COVID-19, Drs. Cinthya Pena Orbea and Reena Mehra of the Cleveland Clinic and colleagues reported on Wednesday in JAMA Network Open. It is not clear if treatments that improve sleep apnea, such as CPAP machines that push air into patients’ airways during sleep, would also reduce the risk of severe COVID-19, said Pena Orbea and Mehra.

Body’s coronavirus memory may abort new infections

Healthcare workers who did not test positive for COVID-19, despite heavy exposure to infected patients, had T cells that attacked a part of the virus that lets it make copies of itself, according to a report published Wednesday in Nature. Researchers who studied the 58 healthcare workers found their T cells responded more strongly to a part of the virus, called the RTC, that is very similar on all human and animal coronaviruses, including all variants of SARS-CoV-2. They suspect the T cells recognized the RTC because they had “seen” it on other viruses during other infections. That makes the RTC a potentially good target for vaccines if more research confirms these findings, study leaders Mala Maini and Leo Swadling, both of University College London, said in a joint email to Reuters. These data were collected during the first wave of the pandemic, they added. “We don’t know if this sort of control happens for more infectious variants currently circulating.”

Vaccines induce neutralizing antibodies in breast milk

Infants might benefit from COVID-19 antibodies in breast milk regardless of whether mothers acquired the antibodies from being infected with SARS-CoV-2 or from vaccines, according to new findings reported on Wednesday in JAMA Pediatrics. Researchers studied antibodies in breast milk samples from 47 mothers who had been infected with the virus and 30 healthy mothers who had received the vaccines from Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech. Antibodies from both groups were able to neutralize active SARS-CoV-2 virus, and while antibodies from infection were evident in milk for longer periods, antibody levels from vaccination “were much more uniform,” said study leader Bridget Young of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York. Thus, there is likely benefit to getting vaccinated even after a COVID-19 infection because breast milk would then contain a diverse variety of antibodies, she said. The researchers did not study the effect of the antibodies on the babies who consumed the milk.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Tiffany Wu)

U.S. safety board: Train-crash engineers had sleep disorders

: A computer screen showing different tracks at the Penn Station Control Room for Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. July 25, 2017. REUTERS/Carlo A

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The engineers in two New York City area commuter train crashes suffered from undiagnosed sleep disorders, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday.

The board plans to hold a Feb. 6 meeting on the September 2016 crash in Hoboken, New Jersey, that killed one person and injured more than 100 others, and the January accident in Brooklyn that left more than 100 people with non-life-threatening injuries.

Both engineers had no memory of the crashes and were severely overweight. The Centers for Disease Control says being overweight puts individuals at a higher risk of sleep apnea.

The disorder, characterized by shallow or interrupted breathing during sleep, often goes undiagnosed and can leave sufferers fatigued during the day, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The safety board said the brakes were working on the New Jersey Transit train traveling at 8 miles (13 km) per hour 38 seconds before the crash. The train then accelerated to 21 mph at impact, twice the speed limit, and emergency brakes were applied one second before the crash.

The 48-year-old engineer underwent a home sleep study in October that concluded “he had severe sleep apnea.” A separate report found he was obese and had gained more than 90 pounds in the previous five years.

In January, the safety board said the Long Island Rail Road train that crashed into a bumper at the busy Atlantic Terminal in New York’s Brooklyn borough appeared to be traveling at more than twice the speed limit of 5 mph.

The engineer was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea after the crash, the board said on Thursday.

The LIRR began testing all of its 432 engineers for sleep apnea after the accident and told the board that 34 had been screened through May.

Eight of the 34 had screened positive and had been referred for more testing. One other engineer told the LIRR he had been diagnosed and was being treated for sleep apnea.

The safety board has raised the issue before. In 2014, it said the driver of a train that derailed in New York City, killing four passengers, had an undiagnosed sleep disorder at the time of the 2013 accident.

 

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)