People with sleep apnoea ‘may be at increased pneumonia risk’

Sleep apnoea can increase a person's risk of suffering from pneumonia, a new study has revealed.

The Taiwanese research project followed 34,100 patients for 11 years. It was found that pneumonia was more likely to develop in the people with sleep apnoea than in the control group, demonstrating that it can be considered an independent risk factor for incident pneumonia.

Several studies have explored the link between sleep apnea and pneumonia, but this study is unusual in terms of its large scale. The higher incidence of pneumonia in people with sleep apnoea could be because of increased risk of aspirating contents or liquid from the throat.

Dr Vincent Yi-Fong Su and Dr Kun-Ta Chou of the department of chest medicine at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, said: "Our results also demonstrated an exposure-response relation in that patients with more severe sleep apnoea may have a higher risk of pneumonia than patients with sleep apnea of milder severity."

Sleep apnoea is characterized by disrupted sleep and is caused when the upper airway becomes obstructed by soft tissue, cutting off oxygen. In the UK, it is estimated that around four percent of middle-aged men and two percent of middle-aged women have the condition.