Sleep Dynamic Therapy

Archive for October, 2007

I’ve not read the report yet, but the media summary is quite interesting on the proposed relationship between obesity and cancer. No doubt many individuals who suffer obesity also suffer from SDB. And, SDB is a major cause of oxidative stress in which various biomolecules attack the inner lining of blood vessels. Oxidative stress is a major pathway through which we are at risk for hypertension and heart disease. I wonder if this pathway may be relevant in the discussion on obesity and cancer.

This media piece on recent research about UPPP fails to make note of the frequent side-effects induced by this procedure. The technique sometimes worsens sleep breathing problems in patients, but more importantly, UPPP sometimes makes it more diifficult to use CPAP in the future. A simple Google search provides many links discussing these problems and more.

This study on changes in depression following CPAP use is very important, because it looks at the longer term impact of treating SDB. In some other recent studies, the time frame was too short to learn much about what PAP therapy does to depression. Remember, most depression builds in patients over many months time, if not longer. To reverse depression or at least reduce it, we would expect a sleep-oriented treatment to take several weeks or months to have a meaningful impact. That’s what these researchers found.