New sleep apnea measure is linked to heart death risk
Adults in the highest third of a new sleep apnea score had a 72% higher risk of cardiovascular death compared to those in the lowest.
Limit: Effects of treating the physiological burden on death risk were not measured
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Researchers tracked 4,904 community-dwelling adults in an observational prospective cohort study from the Sleep Heart Health Study. They evaluated obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder where breathing repeatedly pauses during sleep. The team tested a composite metric combining event intensity, timing across the night, and cumulative blood oxygen drops from overnight sleep recordings. Over a median follow-up of 11.0 years, 341 cardiovascular deaths occurred. In fully adjusted models, participants in the highest third of the score faced a 72% higher risk of cardiovascular death compared to those in the lowest. Each standard-deviation increase in the score was associated with a 13% higher risk. In contrast, for standard measures of event frequency and oxygen drops, the ranges of likely values included no difference after full adjustment.
Why it matters
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in older adults, and sleep apnea becomes more common with advancing age. Measuring the physical strain of breathing pauses rather than simple counts may help identify which patients face the highest risk of heart-related death.
Caveats
Because this was an observational study, it cannot show whether treating this physiological burden lowers the risk of death. The findings reflect community-dwelling adults in a single cohort study and were presented in a conference abstract.
The paper
Fuwai Hospital; Northeastern University
ESC Congress 2026 Abstract, Oct 26, 2026
Presented at ESC Congress 2026
