Report links pollution, sleep disorders

[unhappycamper]

Report links pollution, sleep disorders
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jun 18, 2010 15:17:33 EDT

Researchers have determined that people in areas with high pollution are more likely to have sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, according to the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a link between air pollution exposure and ,” wrote lead researcher Antonella Zanobetti in the report.

The study comes as the military reports skyrocketing rates of sleep apnea in recent years and as veterans groups see a connection between troops who have developed respiratory problems and sleep apnea and exposure to open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Active-duty cases of obstructive sleep apnea — a condition that causes people to stop breathing as they sleep — have increased nearly 600 percent since 2000, with the biggest jumps coming a couple of years after the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military officials say part of the reason that the rates have increased may be because doctors have gotten better at diagnosing sleep apnea.

The new study, conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Harvard School of Public Health, states that “the influence of air pollution on (sleep-disordered breathing) is poorly understood.”