Three-dimensional facial photography can provide a simple and highly accurate method of predicting the presence of obstructive sleep apnea, according to a study led by The University of Western Australia (UWA).

The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, builds on previous work identifying that the structure of the face, head, and neck played a key role in diagnosing sleep apnea.

Professor Peter Eastwood, director of the Centre for Sleep Science, and his research team ran overnight sleep studies while Syed Zulqarnain Gilani, PhD, from UWA’s School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, analyzed the 3D faces.

“What we found was that we could predict the presence of obstructive sleep apnea with 91% accuracy when craniofacial measurements from 3D photography were combined into a single predictive algorithm,” Gilani says in a release.

The study recruited 400 middle-aged men and women who took part in sleep studies at UWA’s Centre for Sleep Science and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital while their faces were analyzed from 3D photographs. Participants were also recruited from Western Australia’s Raine Study.

The study suggests

Glidewell Dental has released a new mandibular advancement device, the Oasys Hinge Appliance. This oral sleep appliance is Medicare and PDAC (Pricing, Data Analysis and Coding) cleared under code E0486 to treat patients with mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

“Snoring is a warning sign that should not be ignored,” says Randy Clare, director of brand and product management at Glidewell Dental, in a release. “An estimated 50% of US adults snore and 30 percent of people are habitual snorers. In addition, adults over the age of 65 are at an increased risk of obstructive sleep apnea, which can be very serious if left untreated. Two common symptoms of OSA include loud, chronic snoring and daytime sleepiness.”

The Oasys Hinge Appliance is designed to gently shift the lower jaw forward during sleep, which activates the airway muscles and ligaments to prevent the airway from collapsing. The device is custom-made for each patient. It’s micro-adjustable (0.25 mm increments), with up to 10 mm of advancement based on the patient’s needs. The telescope-style hinge allows for natural jaw movement and can

In an interview with MD Magazine, Karl Doghramji, MD, a professor at Thomas Jefferson University, explained the technical definition of insomnia, and how that definition has helped shape the clinical understanding of its comorbidities.

And finally, what’s interesting about the new nosologic classification of insomnia is that we no longer look at insomnia being a primary or secondary phenomenon. We now look at as being a problem or disorder which coexists with other disorders, or is comorbid with other disorders. So we’re used to saying insomnia occurred because of this problem, because of that problem. Now, we say in some it’s comorbid with depression, or gastroesophageal reflux, or with sleep apnea.

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Women with severe sleep apnea appear to be at an elevated risk of getting cancer, a study shows. No causal relationship is demonstrated, but the link between nocturnal hypoxia in women and higher cancer risk is still clear.

“It’s reasonable to assume that sleep apnea is a risk factor for cancer, or that both conditions have common risk factors, such as overweight. On the other hand, it is less likely that cancer leads to sleep apnea,” says Ludger Grote, adjunct professor and chief physician in sleep medicine, and the last author of the current study, in a release.

The research, published in the European Respiratory Journal, is based on analyses of registry data, collected in the European database ESADA, on a total of some 20,000 adult patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). About 2% of them also had a cancer diagnosis.

As expected, advanced age was associated with elevated cancer risk, but adjusting the data for age, gender, body mass index (BMI), smoking, and alcohol consumption nevertheless showed a possible link between intermittent hypoxia at night and higher cancer

“Extreme larks” get up naturally when some people have hardly gone to bed, reports The Atlantic.

There are some limits to this study. Since Ptáček and Jones ran their study at a sleep clinic, most of the patients had sleep apnea. Ptáček said he found that the presence or absence of sleep apnea does not affect whether someone will be a lark or a night owl, but Abbott and other experts I asked were not so sure that the data are perfectly generalizable to the general population.

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