Sleep apnea linked to bone loss, study claims

A study shows that sleep apnea is linked to bone loss and osteoporosis.

Sleep apnea is tied to osteoporosis and bone fractures, new research finds. 

About 54 million Americans over the age of 50 are affected by low bone mass, and about 10 million of them have osteoporosis, which leads to brittle bones and fractures. 

Obstructive sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that occurs commonly in this population as well, and has been linked to multiple adverse health effects, including high blood pressure, heart disease. and depression.

Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland theorize that sleep apnea may be an unrecognized cause of osteoporosis because it seems to affect bone remodeling, a process necessary for bone health. During remodeling, mature bone is removed from the skeleton and new bone tissue is rebuilt, even while we sleep.

The authors of the new study reviewed research that deals with bone metabolism and found important indications that sleep apnea interrupts the bone remodeling process.

"If sleep disorders like obstructive sleep apnea affect bone metabolism, they may have diagnostic and therapeutic implications for many patients, including those affected by sleep apnea in their early, bone modeling years," said lead author Dr. Christine Swanson.

The study is published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

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Osteoporosis linked to sleep apnea

A study shows that poor bone health and osteoporosis are linked with sleep apnea.

People with sleep apnea, a common sleep disorder, may be at increased risk for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, especially women and older people, a new study suggests.

Sleep apnea causes repeated, brief interruptions in breathing during sleep. Untreated sleep apnea can increase a person’s risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke.

“Ongoing sleep disruptions caused by obstructive sleep apnea can harm many of the body’s systems, including the skeletal system,” said study co-author Dr. Kai-Jen Tien, of Chi Mei Medical Center in Tainan, Taiwan.

“When sleep apnea periodically deprives the body of oxygen, it can weaken bones and raise the risk of osteoporosis,” Tien said. “The progressive condition can lead to bone fractures, increased medical costs, reduced quality of life and even death.”

For the study, published April 15 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, researchers analyzed the medical records of nearly 1,400 people in Taiwan diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea between 2000 and 2008. They compared them with more than 20,600 people who did not have the sleep disorder.

Over six years of follow-up, people with sleep apnea were 2.7 times more likely to be diagnosed with osteoporosis. The risk for the bone-thinning disease was highest among women and older people with sleep apnea, according to the study.

“As more and more people are diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea worldwide, both patients and health care providers need to be aware of the heightened risk of developing other conditions,” Tien said in a journal news release. “We need to pay more attention to the relationship between sleep apnea and bone health so we can identify strategies to prevent osteoporosis.”

However, the study only noted an association between sleep apnea and osteoporosis. It does not prove that one causes the other.

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Vitamin D recommended for children with epilepsy

This article reviews research leading to the recommendation that children with epilepsy take low-dose Vitamin D supplements to help with their bone health.

The review was done by doctors at Leicester Royal Infirmary’s Department of Paediatric Neurology. Their work shows that bone health in young people with epilepsy may be a bigger problem than was previously thought. These young people may be two or three times more likely to break bones than others their age.

Previous research has shown that epilepsy can affect bone health in some groups. Some anti-epileptic medicines can affect bone metabolism. This is a process that gradually replaces old bone tissue with new tissue – important in healing fractures, for instance. The medicines can prevent the body doing this as effectively as it should.

These medicines can also negatively affect bone density – so that a person’s bones contain less minerals than they should. This makes them easier to break. Previous research has shown increased risks of poor bone-health in older people or menopausal women, for example. However, literature has suggested that young people with epilepsy are not at increased risk of broken bones.

The review from Leicester Royal Infirmary disagrees. While the previous research says that young people are not at a higher risk, the review points out that these older studies only looked at very small numbers of people. They also failed to take into account other factors that could affect bone health in youngsters with epilepsy. These include things like other conditions, how mobile the young person is, what their diet is like and whether they are obese.

The Leicester team say that further research in this area is urgently needed. Still, they say that in the absence of reliable scientific evidence, young people with epilepsy should be prescribed a low-dose vitamin D supplement. This should lower the possible risk of fractures.

In the article was published in The Journal of Paediatric Neurosciences. In it, authors state: “Low-dose vitamin D supplementation… is now recommended for healthy children and it is biologically feasible that children with epilepsy may be at higher risk of clinically significant deficiency. It is important that neurologists ensure that low-dose vitamin D supplementation should be prescribed… in children with epilepsy.”

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