Sleep apnea appears to be associated with an increased risk for gout, according to a new study. Gout is caused by elevated levels of uric acid in the blood and causes painful joints, most commonly a very a painful joint in the big toe.
Previous studies have shown that people with sleep apnea are more likely to have elevated blood levels of uric acid, but it has not been clear before whether sleep apnea is associated with gout, and, if so, how strong that association is.
To find out, researchers used data from The Health Improvement Network, a British health database. They studied more than 9,800 people with an average age 54 who had sleep apnea and matched them to 43,598 individuals who did not have sleep apnea and who served as controls. Because sleep apnea is associated with being overweight, the participants were matched for body mass index and other characteristics.
After one year, people with sleep apnea were about 50% more likely to have had an attack of gout compared with the controls. This increased risk was seen even when sex, age, or obesity were taken into account.
This finding suggests that treating sleep apnea could reduce the incidence of attacks of gout, but the lead author, Yuqing Zhang, a professor of medicine at Boston University, is cautious.
"Our findings call for future studies to evaluate the effect of treating sleep apnea on serum uric acid levels and the risk of gout," he said in an interview with The New York Times.
Sleep apnea is a condition in which a person has pauses in their breathing or breathes too shallowly during their sleep. The pauses in breathing can last several seconds or longer. It is chronic and it disrupts sleep, causing daytime drowsiness. Often, a person with sleep apnea is a snorer or emits occasional loud snores or choking sounds while they sleep.
The study was published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology.