In a first, researchers have hit upon a combo of two existing medications to reduce the severity of sleep apnoea in people by at least 30 percent.
Millions of people around the world are affected by sleep apnoea, a condition where the upper airway from the back of the nose to the throat closes repetitively during sleep, restricting oxygen intake and causing people to wake as often as 100 times or more per hour.
Those with untreated sleep apnoea have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease, dementia and depression, and are two to four times more likely to crash a car than the general population. There are no approved drug therapies to treat the condition despite nearly three decades of research, and until now, the main therapy for sleep apnoea involves wearing a mask to bed, or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Therapy (CPAP). However, many people find it uncomfortable and half the people that try it find it hard to tolerate. Second line therapies, such as mouthguards fitted by dentists, can be unpredictable and expensive.
Prior studies had shown that two classes of medication, reboxetine and butylbromide, were able to keep muscles active during sleep in people without sleep apnoea, and assist breathing ability.
Researchers used a multitude of recording instruments to measure whether reboxetine and butylbromide could successfully target the main causes of sleep apnoea.
This included balancing the electrical activity of muscles around the airway, preventing the throat from collapsing during sleep, and improving the regulation of carbon dioxide and breathing.
Results from the study, published in the Journal of Physiology, showed these medications did in fact increase the muscle activity around participants’ airways, with the drugs reducing the severity of participants’ sleep apnoea by up to one third.
Almost everyone studied had some improvement in sleep apnoea. People’s oxygen intake improved, their number of breathing stoppages was a third or more less. These new findings allow researchers to further refine these types of medications so that they have even greater benefit than what has currently been found.
Senior author Professor Danny Eckert, Director of Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health at Flinders University commented: “We were thrilled because the current treatment options for people with sleep apnoea are limited and can be a painful journey for many.
“Next, we will look at the effects of these and similar medications over the longer term. We will assess whether we can harness the benefits of one drug without needing to use them both.
“Equally, we will test whether these treatments can be combined with other existing medications to see if we can improve their efficacy even more,” he says.
Source: University of Flinders
