"The groundwork of all happiness is health." - Leigh Hunt

Sleep deprivation related to mental health conditions in middle and older age

Here is an incentive to get signs of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). OSA is characterised by repeated pauses in respiratory during sleep, and is linked to increased risks of hypertension, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Oh study Posted on December 26, 2025 JAMA Network Open. It seems that OSA may also be linked to depression and other mental health problems.

For the study, researchers analyzed health data from a long-term study of aging, including greater than 30,000 individuals who were between the ages of 45 and 85 when the study began. Because OSA is commonly underdiagnosed, the researchers used a tool that measures an individual's risk for the condition. High risk is defined as having two or more of the next: snoring, daytime sleepiness, suffocation by one other person, and hypertension. This applied to about 23% of participants when the study began and 27% three years later. At each points, people at higher risk for OSA had depression, a mood disorder (akin to bipolar disorder or mania), or an anxiety disorder (akin to phobia or obsessive-compulsive disorder), compared with those that didn't meet the definition.


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