Untreated Sleep Apnea Boosts Risk of Heart Disease, Stroke | Medpage Today.

Compared with OSA-negative patients, untreated OSA was associated with an 86% higher mortality risk (adjusted hazard ratio 1.86, 95% CI 1.81 to 1.91), and treated OSA was associated with a 35% higher mortality risk (aHR 1.35, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.51), wrote Miklos Z. Molnar, MD, PhD, of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, and colleagues, in the journal Thorax.

Untreated OSA also was associated with a 3.5 times higher risk of incident coronary heart disease (aHR 3.54, 95% CI 3.40 to 3.69), and a 3.5 times higher risk of incident strokes (aHR 3.48, 95% CI 3.28 to 3.64), while treated OSA was associated with a threefold higher risk of incident CHD (aHR 3.06, 95% CI 2.62 to 3.56) and 3.5-fold higher risk of incident strokes (aHR 3.50, 95% CI 2.92 to 4.19). The risk of incident kidney disease also was significantly higher in untreated (aHR 2.27, 95% CI 2.19 to 2.36) and treated OSA (aHR 2.79, 95% CI 2.48 to 3.13).