CPAP slows down aging in men with obstructive sleep apnea

Key takeaways:

• CPAP can help slow down “accelerated aging” seen in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.
• Further, CPAP vs. no CPAP lowered inflammation in men.

CPAP use for 6 months reduced telomere shortening, or cellular aging, in men with obstructive sleep apnea compared with no CPAP use, according to study results presented at SLEEP 2023.

“Considering that an important modulator of telomere maintenance is oxidative stress, and that telomere-driven replicative senescence is primarily a stress response, many cross-sectional studies have suggested an association between OSA and short telomeres,” Priscila Farias Tempaku, MSc, PhD, researcher in the department of psychobiology at the Federal University of São Paulo, told Healio. “However, no studies so far were conducted with CPAP to understand the modulation of the treatment on the molecular pathways related to aging. Our results demonstrated that CPAP intervention was able to stabilize telomere length, highlighting the importance of OSA treatment even for preventing accelerated aging.”

In a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial, Tempaku and colleagues evaluated 46 men (age range, 50-60 years) with moderate or severe OSA to determine the relationship between 6-month CPAP treatment and changes in telomere length.

Patients completed a clinical assessment and had their blood taken seven different times so researchers could determine their mean leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and the levels of metabolic and inflammatory markers.

Researchers did not observe any significant differences at baseline between those prescribed CPAP and those prescribed sham-CPAP.

The CPAP group showed treatment adherence of 5.71 hours per night, which appeared similar to the adherence rate observed for those in the sham group (5.29 hours/night).

Compared with patients treated with CPAP, patients treated with sham-CPAP had significant declines in LTL after 6 months (P = .001), with differences seen at 1 month (CPAP, 1.096 vs. sham-CPAP, 1.0117) 3 months (1.0521 vs. 0.9457) and 6 months (1.0675 vs. 0.8482).

“We were not sure if we would be able to see the effect of the treatment in a short period of time, [but] we were positively surprised to observe that,” Tempaku told Healio.

Additionally, researchers found that tumor necrosis factor-alpha, an inflammatory marker, influenced LTL among those using sham-CPAP but not those using CPAP.

“In a previous study published by our group using a population-based sample of 1,000 individuals, we observed that the average change observed in telomere length between controls and severe OSA had an effect size higher than the effect size regarding telomere length in two groups with 10 years of age difference,” Tempaku told Healio. “These results, combined with our most recent work, stress that OSA is associated with accelerated aging.”

When asked about future studies, Tempaku stressed the importance of expanding the cohort to include women.

“The inclusion of women is certainly an important factor to be considered for future studies since women generally present longer telomeres due to the protective actions of estrogen,” Tempaku told Healio. “Also, trying to combine other biomarkers of aging as it is not clear if the effects of OSA on aging are telomere-specific or if it also affects other pathways.”

Reference:

• Sleep apnea accelerates aging, but use of breathing therapy method can mitigate the problem. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/999376. Published Aug. 23, 2023. Accessed Aug. 28, 2023.