Language
English
Publication Date
9-1-2024
Journal
Sleep Medicine
DOI
10.1016/j.sleep.2024.06.012
PMID
38901302
PMCID
PMC11385665
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
9-1-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Author MSS
Abstract
Purpose: While sleep apnea (SA) gets more prevalent with advancing age, the impact of age on the association between SA and health outcomes is not well known. We assessed the association between the severity of SA and all-cause mortality in different age groups using large longitudinal data.
Method: We applied a Natural Language Processing pipeline to extract the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) from the physicians' interpretation of sleep studies performed at the Veteran Health Administration (FY 1999-2022). We categorized the participants as no SA (n-SA, AHI< 5) and severe SA (s-SA, AHI≥30). We grouped the cohort based on age: Young≤40; Middle-aged:40-65; and Older adults≥65; and calculated the odds ratio (aOR) of mortality adjusted for age, sex, race, ethnicity, BMI, and Charlson-Comorbidity Index (CCI) using n-SA as the reference.
Results: We identified 146,148 participants (age 52.23 ± 15.02; BMI 32.11 ± 6.05; male 86.7 %; White 66 %). Prevalence of s-SA increased with age. All-cause mortality was lower in s-SA compared to n-SA in the entire cohort (aOR,0.56; 95%CI: 0.54,0.58). Comparing s-SA to n-SA, the all-cause mortality rates (Young 1.86 % vs 1.49 %; Middle-aged 12.07 % vs 13.34 %; and Older adults 26.35 % vs 40.18 %) and the aOR diminished as the age increased (Young: 1.11, 95%CI: 0.93-1.32; Middle-aged: 0.64, 95%CI: 0.61-0.67; and Older adults: 0.44, 95%CI: 0.41-0.46).
Conclusion: The prevalence of severe SA increased while the odds of all-cause mortality compared to n-SA diminished with age. SA may exert less harmful effects on the aged population. A causality analysis is warranted to assess the relationship between SA, aging, and all-cause mortality.
Keywords
Humans, Male, Female, Middle Aged, Sleep Apnea Syndromes, Age Factors, Aged, Adult, Prevalence, Severity of Illness Index, United States, Longitudinal Studies, Mortality, Risk Factors
Published Open-Access
yes
Recommended Citation
Ramezani, Amin; Azarian, Mehrnaz; Sharafkhaneh, Amir; et al., "Age Modifies the Association Between Severe Sleep Apnea and All-Cause Mortality" (2024). Faculty and Staff Publications. 4521.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/baylor_docs/4521