Researchers Connect Sleep Apnea with Depression Symptoms

A recent study that was published by Sleep reported that gasping, snorting and short breathing cessations while sleeping may have strong links to depression. The study was based on data from 10,000 adults. Researchers said that achieving quality sleep on a regular basis is as vital to health as eating healthy foods, exercising and avoiding cigarettes.

The symptoms mentioned above are symptoms of a sleep disorder called obstructive sleep apnea. Symptoms of the very common sleep disorder, excluding snoring, have been found in previous studies to have connections with people who suffer from depression. But according to Anne Wheaton, Ph.D., who is an epidemiologist at the National Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, those earlier studies were smaller-scale studies that touched on only people who underwent sleep studies at a sleep lab in order to diagnose their sleep apnea. In fact, most people with sleep apnea don’t even know that they have it; the sleep disorder is widely under diagnosed.

The published study in Sleep was a project spearheaded by Dr. Wheaton.  The study was the very first, according to her, to look into, specifically, sleep-disordered breathing and its connection with depression. The subjects studied consisted of a representative group of American adults who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 4 to 7 years ago.

During the survey, subjects responded to questions about how frequently they experienced breathing stoppage in a single night and whether they snorted or grunted while sleeping. A short questionnaire assessing common depression symptoms was also completed by all subjects in the study. Their height and weight were measured.

In the end, NHANES showed that 6% of men and 3% women had confirmation from a sleep doctor that they had sleep apnea.  7% of men and 4% women said they snorted or stopped breathing 5 nights out of the week. Those who snorted or stopped breathing also indicated that they had major signs of depression, much more prevalently than those who said that they do not have such sleeping breathing problems.

Dr. Wheaton said that the link between depression and sleep apnea may reside in the fact that the brain does not get enough oxygen if you have sleep apnea. More research into this relationship will reveal whether depression or sleep apnea causes the other. In the future, maybe patients on depression medication could actually be cured when their underlying sleep apnea is cured.

Sleep specialist Amy Aronsky, D.O., who is Medical Director of a sleep center in Washington, said that many sleep doctors make it a habit to ask questions about depression symptoms when they make their sleep evaluations. Dr. Aronsky said that lack of quality sleep can add more to the symptoms of a depressive patient.

Another expert from the UCLA School of Nursing and Brain Research Institute, Paul Macey, Ph.D. said that he believed that in order to conduct studies of the which-comes-first issue scientists would need to dedicate themselves to years of expensive research. Macey has conducted research with sleep apnea patients, noting the actually timeline of their sleep disorder—when it started, etc. He said that he thinks that sleep apnea probably comes first, before depression develops. Though, he also emphasized that what he is doing up until this point has been purely anecdotal and cannot serve as the basis of a conclusion about sleep apnea and depression.

To find out if you have sleep apnea, order a sleep study at a local sleep center in your community.