Moderate to severe OSA may be an independent risk factor associated with incident CMBs in the general adult population. Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Cerebral Microbleeds in Middle-Aged and Older Adults – https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2840617
Small study (n = 1441), Koreans, and this study has several limitations.
Still yikes!
“We know what cigarettes do to the lungs,” said study author Giselle Revah, M.D., a cardiothoracic radiologist and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada. “There are well researched and established findings of cigarette smoking on the lungs. Marijuana we know very little about.”
To find out more, Dr. Revah and colleagues compared chest CT results from 56 marijuana smokers with those of 57 non-smoking controls and 33 tobacco-only smokers.
Three-quarters of the marijuana smokers had emphysema, a lung disease that causes difficulty with breathing, compared with 67% of the tobacco-only smokers. Only 5% of the non-smokers had emphysema. Paraseptal emphysema, which damages the tiny ducts that connect to the air sacs in the lungs, was the predominant emphysema subtype in marijuana smokers compared to the tobacco-only group.
Radiological Society of North America. “Emphysema more common in marijuana smokers than cigarette smokers.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221115113940.htm (originally accessed November 15, 2022).
Journal Reference
Luke Murtha, Paul Sathiadoss, Jean-Paul Salameh, Matthew D. F. Mcinnes, Giselle Revah. Chest CT Findings in Marijuana Smokers. Radiology, 2022; DOI: 10.1148/radiol.212611
The mean age of the MJ smokers in the study was 49.
The mean age of the tobacco smokers in the study was 60.
Sleep apnea affects ∼50% to 75% of patients with heart failure.
Still Too Hot To Blog but I had to share this.
Full Disclosure – I hate cooking on an electric stove. So there might be some bias in this post.
Here’s a link to the study behind the headlines – Population Attributable Fraction of Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma in the United States https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/75#B6-ijerph-20-00075.
Here’s a nice review of the study that most people will never read – No, new study does not link gas stoves with asthma in children https://junkscience.com/2023/01/no-new-study-does-not-link–stoves-with-asthma-in-children/
I read the study behind the headlines:
Indoor gas stove use for cooking is associated with an increased risk of current asthma among children…
Population Attributable Fraction of Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma in the United States – link above
The proportion of children (<18 years old) exposed to gas stoves was obtained from the American Housing Survey for the US, and states with available data (n = 9). We found that 12.7% (95% CI = 6.3–19.3%) of current childhood asthma in the US is attributable to gas stove use. The proportion of childhood asthma that could be theoretically prevented if gas stove use was not present (e.g., state-specific PAFs) varied by state… Nonetheless, our results align with a cross-sectional study which found that the use of a gas stove or oven for heat was a main risk factor for doctor-diagnosed asthma in US children under age six [6].
Note the authors went from “associated with” to “attributed to gas stove use”. When I got to the “main risk factor” statement I immediately went into WTF mode. So I decided to read some of the authors’ source documents including this one – Contribution of Residential Exposures to Asthma in US Children and Adolescents https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/107/6/e98/66289/Contribution-of-Residential-Exposures-to-Asthma-in?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
The list of predictors of doctor diagnosed asthma included history of pet allergy, presence of pet in the household, dust mites, fungus, diagnosis of allergic rhinitis and cockroaches. The main risk factor of gas stove use is not listed.
Talor Gruenwald is listed as the lead author of the study causing an uproar from professional chefs in the US. Gruenwald used to work here https://rmi.org/ and now works here https://www.rewiringamerica.org
Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
George Orwell – 1984
This was an interesting deep dive behind the headlines.
Did I mention I hate cooking on an electric stove?
Up to one-third of crashes of large trucks are attributable to sleepiness, and large truck crashes result in more than 4,000 deaths annually. For each occupant of a truck who is killed, 6 to 7 occupants of other vehicles are killed.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep-related breathing disorder that is characterized by repetitive episodes of complete or partial upper airway obstruction during sleep.1 OSA is common among adults,2,3 and it is particularly common in commercial operators.4–8 Untreated OSA leads to increased morbidity and mortality, as well as high costs related to crashes, health care use, absenteeism, and lost productivity.9–11 A systematic review and meta-analysis commissioned by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) shows that drivers with OSA have a crash risk that is between 21% and 489% higher than comparable drivers without OSA.12 A 2013 meta-analysis of more than 25,000 individuals who were enrolled in 12 studies shows that OSA was associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (relative risk: 1.79), fatal and nonfatal stroke (relative risk: 2.15), and death from all causes (relative risk: 1.92).13
Obstructive sleep apnea screening, diagnosis, and treatment in the transportation industry – https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.9672
The findings come from the long-running Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which has documented cannabis use and measured lung function throughout adult life up to age 45 in more than 1000 individuals born in Dunedin in 1972/73.
University of Otago. “How long-term cannabis use can damage lungs.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220203192317.htm (accessed February 4, 2022).
Inhaling hot smoke into your lungs over a long period of time. What could possibly go wrong?
Proning intubated patients has become a staple of ARDS care, and has been shown to improve mortality
COVID19 – Awake Pronation – A guest write-up by David Gordon, MD
This article is a clinical piece and mostly for medical professionals.
“Most clinicians, and even experts in the sleep apnea world, have not typically focused on fat in the tongue for treating sleep apnea,” said Richard Schwab, MD, chief of Sleep Medicine. “Now that we know tongue fat is a risk factor and that sleep apnea improves when tongue fat is reduced, we have established a unique therapeutic target that we’ve never had before.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200110101035.htm
From the research article abstract:
Conclusions:
Weight loss reduced volumes of several UA soft tissues in persons with obesity and OSA. Improved AHI with weight loss was mediated by reductions in tongue fat. New treatments that reduce tongue fat should be considered for patients with OSA.
Journal Reference:
- Stephen H. Wang, Brendan T Keenan, Andrew Wiemken, Yinyin Zang, Bethany Staley, David B. Sarwer, Drew A. Torigian, Noel Williams, Allan I Pack, Richard J Schwab. Effect of Weight Loss on Upper Airway Anatomy and the Apnea Hypopnea Index: The Importance of Tongue Fat. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2020; DOI: 10.1164/rccm.201903-0692OC
Wait for it. A plethora of diet and weight loss books for your tongue.
As of October 22, 2019, a total of 1,604 cases of EVALI, including 34 deaths, were reported to CDC. Based on data collected as of October 15, 2019, use of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing products in the 3 months preceding symptom onset was reported by 86% of patients. The median age of EVALI patients who survived was 23 years, and the median age of EVALI patients who died was 45 years.
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