July 21st, 2008
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This news item is more than a year old. Links, graphics, content, medical information, and statistics may be out of date. We invite you to search, visit our homepage, or contact us to find more current information on the topic you're looking for.Obstructive Sleep Apnea Linked to Nighttime Heart Attacks
MedPage Today July 21, 2008 -- Obstructive sleep apnea appears to significantly shift the typical time of onset in myocardial infarction (MI) and may be a trigger for nocturnal MI, investigators here concluded.
Among patients with a known time of MI onset, sleep apnea was associated with a five-fold greater frequency of infarction between midnight and 6 a.m., compared with MI patients who did not have apnea, Virend K. Somers, M.D., Ph.D., of the Mayo Clinic, and colleagues, reported in the July 29 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Moreover, all but two patients who had nocturnal MIs also had obstructive sleep apnea.
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