Patients with obstructive sleep apnoea often show cognitive deficits, but these have traditionally been attributed to comorbidities such as systemic hypertension, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and type 2 diabetes. Now, researchers have shown for the first time that OSA itself is sufficient to cause early cognitive decline.

患有阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停的病人常常表现出认知缺陷，但这些缺陷传统上被归因于合并症，如全身性高血压、心血管和代谢疾病以及2型糖尿病。现在，研究人员首次表明，OSA本身就足以导致早期认知能力下降。

Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a potentially dangerous condition — during sleep, the throat muscles of people with OSA relax and block the airflow into the lungs, so that they repeatedly stop breathing. Common symptoms of OSA include restless sleep, loud snoring, daytime sleepiness and prolonged headaches in the morning.

阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停(OSA)是一种潜在的危险状况——OSA患者的喉部肌肉放松，阻断进入肺部的气流，从而使他们反复停止呼吸。OSA的常见症状包括睡眠不安稳、鼾声大作、白天嗜睡和早晨长时间头痛。

Major risk factors for OSA include middle or old age, being obese, smoking, chronic nasal blockage, high blood pressure and being male. Now, researchers from the UK, Germany and Australia have shown that in middle-aged men, OSA can cause early cognitive decline, even in patients who are otherwise healthy. Their results have been published in Frontiers in Sleep.

阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停的主要危险因素包括中老年、肥胖、吸烟、慢性鼻塞、高血压和男性。现在，来自英国、德国和澳大利亚的研究人员已经表明，在中年男性中，阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停综合症会导致早期认知能力下降，即使在其他方面健康的患者中也是如此。他们的研究结果发表在《睡眠前沿》杂志上。

“We show poorer executive functioning and visuospatial memory and deficits in vigilance, sustained attention, and psychomotor and impulse control in men with OSA. Most of these deficits had previously been ascribed to comorbidities,” said Dr Ivana Rosenzweig, head of the Sleep and Brain Plasticity Centre at King’s College London and lead author of the study.

“我们发现，OSA患者的执行功能和视觉空间记忆较差，警觉性、持续注意力、精神运动和冲动控制方面存在缺陷。”伦敦国王学院睡眠和大脑可塑性中心的负责人、该研究的主要作者伊万娜·罗森茨威格博士说:“大多数这些缺陷以前都被归因于合并症。”