A NIH-funded study indicates that sleep apnea and nocturnal hypoxia are linked to an increased risk of late-onset epilepsy, suggesting that managing sleep disorders may help prevent this form of epilepsy in older adults.Sleep
“There’s increasing evidence that late-onset epilepsy may be indicative of underlying vascular disease, or neurodegenerative disease, even potentially as a preclinical marker of neurodegenerative disease,” said Rebecca Gottesman, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Stroke Branch at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke , and an author on the study.
Sleep apnea is known to be a risk factor for poor brain health in other ways, including the risk of stroke and dementia, but an association with epilepsy had not been described previously. The link to hypoxia suggests that repeated chronic exposure to low oxygen levels overnight might lead to brain changes that ultimately lead to risk of epilepsy.
Because sleep apnea can have cardiovascular and brain health-related effects, the findings may also ultimately help to identify individuals at risk for some of these other conditions, providing a potential opportunity for treatment and prevention.
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