From the ArcaMax Publishing, Health & Fitness Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/healthtips/s-362143-862093
LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- Brain imaging scans show sleep apnea patients
have brain tissue loss in areas that help store memory, U.S.
researchers said.
In sleep apnea, a sleeper's breathing is halted as the airway is
blocked by muscle and other tissue. The condition is characterized by
loud bursts of snoring and chronic fatigue. The researchers suggest
early diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea may help forestall memory
loss.
"Our findings demonstrate that impaired breathing during sleep can
lead to a serious brain injury that disrupts memory and thinking,"
principal investigator Ronald Harper of the David Geffen School of
Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles said in a
statement.
The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to collect
high-resolution images of the brains of 43 sleep apnea patients,
including slices of the mammillary bodies -- named because they
resemble small breasts on the underside of the brain -- and compared
the results to images of 66 controls matched for age and gender.
The study, published in the journal Neuroscience Letters, found sleep
apnea patients' mammillary bodies were nearly 20 percent smaller.
"The findings are important because patients suffering memory loss
from other syndromes, such as alcoholism or Alzheimer disease, also
show shrunken mammillary bodies," study lead author Rajesh Kumar said.