Older men who snore or have moments when breathing ceases or nearly ceases during sleep may be at increased risk for heart related problems, study findings suggest.

Dr. Reena Mehra, of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and colleagues conducted in-home sleep studies to identify sleep-associated breathing problems in 2,911 community-dwelling men who were 76 years of age on average.

Up to 26 percent of these men had moderate to severe sleep-disordered breathing, defined as 15 or more episodes of stopped or nearly stopped breathing over a 4-hour period, the researchers report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

“Our data are consistent with other data showing markedly higher levels of sleep-disordered breathing in older compared to younger people, and in men compared to women,” Mehra told Reuters Health.

Furthermore, “our data suggests that there is a 20 percent increased likelihood of cardiovascular disease and 80 percent increased likelihood of heart failure in older men with sleep disordered breathing compared to those without,” Mehra said.

The older men with sleep-disordered breathing were also about two times more likely to snore, about 40 percent more likely to be sleepy during waking hours, and were nearly three times more likely to be obese than men without sleep-disordered breathing.

The investigators also noted a high prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing among the older Asian study participants.

The prevalence of moderate to severe sleep-disordered breathing is three times higher in elderly men than in middle-aged adults, Mehra added. This highlights the importance of screening elderly men for standard sleep-disordered breathing risk factors, such as snoring and daytime sleepiness.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, September 2007