Air pollution could be making matters worse for people with sleep apnea, a new study suggests.
Sleep apnea patients have more episodes of reduced or stopped breathing during their slumber in areas with heavier air pollution, researchers reported Tuesday at an European Respiratory Society meeting in Amsterdam.
Further, these sleep apnea episodes increased as air became more polluted, researchers found.
"We confirmed a statistically significant positive association between average long-term exposure to air pollution, specifically fine particles known as PM10, and the severity of obstructive sleep apnea," researcher Martino Pengo, an associate professor from the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy, said in a news release.
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