Does not treating OSA cause CA?

Maybe I imagined this, but I thought I heard once that decades of untreated OSA (yep, that's me!) can cause damage that can result in central apneas.

Does anyone know if this is indeed the case?

Is it reversible with CPAP/BPAP therapy?

Haven't heard that one before.


Den

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It does promote poor health and premature death. Jim

Your question made me curious enough to go poking around. Did some reading over on the PubMed site. Barely scratched the surface of available reading, and hadn't yet found a specific answer to your question. Did find several articles on OSA causing damage to the central nervous system, which led me to think if the area that controls breathing becomes damaged, it wouldn't be a far stretch to think it could malfunction. Interesting question.

That's an interesting idea. It would sort of make sense that hypoxia screws up your brains and nerves. Your brain and respiratory my end up somewhat adapting to not breathing and sort of "get used" to it, and not react well enough to stop a central apnea type event.

Sounds like it would be really hard to do good research on this, though.

It may be that people without a strong respiratory drive are more likely to have untreated OSA and will develop more centrals. i.e. those who are prone to centrals might be more likely to have untreated OSA.

TyroneShoes wrote: . . . decades of untreated OSA . . . can cause damage that can result in central apneas.

Does anyone know if this is indeed the case?

Is it reversible with CPAP/BPAP therapy?

Decades of untreated moderate-to-severe OSA can cause damage to all organs in the body and can thus lead to just about anything, including death. That is because poor sleep and oxygen-starved-and-poison blood can damage before they kill. Centrals can be one symptom in that process, yes. It is thought by some researchers that years of untreated OSA can damage part of the breathing-regulation system in the body and that centrals can then present. Most with severe OSA also have centrals. For some, months of treatment of the OSA appears to allow the breathing-regulation system to reset so that there are no more clusters of centrals. Others don't reset.

PAP therapy can help a person even after the heart is severely damaged, though, since O2 and sleep help quality of life for all human beings in one way or another, even the very sick ones. "Reversible" has multiple definitions in this context. Some things can be fixed and some things can't. It's an ounce-of-prevention vs. pound-of-cure thing. Or in this case, maybe, cm-of-H2O vs. scalpel-and-suture thing.

A stroke due to OSA could do it.

BlackSpinner wrote:A stroke due to OSA could do it.

In support of BlackSpinner's wording:

The more severe your sleep apnea, the greater the risk of high blood pressure. However, obstructive sleep apnea increases the risk of stroke, regardless of whether or not you have high blood pressure. If there's underlying heart disease, these multiple episodes of low blood oxygen (hypoxia or hypoxemia) can lead to sudden death from a cardiac event. Studies also show that obstructive sleep apnea is associated with increased risk of atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure and other vascular diseases. In contrast, central sleep apnea usually is the result, rather than the cause, of heart disease. -- http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond ... n-20020286