LENGKONG, AYOBANDUNG.COM – Children who experience obstructive sleep apnea who are not treated well into adolescence are more likely to develop hypertension. This is stated in a study compiled by researchers from the Sleep Research and Treatment Center of Penn State University College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
But children whose sleep apnea disappeared in adolescence had no increased risk.
Launching from Medical Xpress, obstructive sleep apnea is a condition when breathing stops during sleep which causes snoring. This research has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The new study looked at 421 children, ages 5 to 12, who were monitored overnight in a sleep laboratory. Of these children, about 12 percent had at least mild obstructive sleep apnea.
After more than seven years of follow-up, when most children were between 12 and 19 years of age, sleep apnea had disappeared in more than half of the participants.
But researchers found that children whose sleep apnea continued into adolescence were 2.9 times more likely to develop high blood pressure. If sleep apnea started in their teens, they were 1.7 times more likely to have high blood pressure.
“Because high blood pressure can cause serious harm, attention to the quality of a child’s sleep is important and a diagnosis of apnea should not be overlooked,” said Julio Fernandez-Mendoza, lead researcher and professor in the Sleep Research and Treatment Center of the Penn State University College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania excerpted from Himedik.com.
“Even so, not every child who snores has sleep apnea, but loud snoring is the most common indicator of this health problem.”
– .
