More than 25 million Americans have obstructive sleep apnea, a dangerous disorder that causes sufferers to briefly stop breathing while they sleep, sometimes many times each night. The standard treatment, the continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine, keeps the airway open by pumping a stream of air through a patient's nostrils as he or she sleeps. The biggest problem with the therapy is non-compliance; many people find the air mask and hose uncomfortable and give up on the machine.
But a large new sleep study published Sunday raises a serious new issue: For people with existing cardiovascular disease and moderate to severe sleep apnea, CPAP doesn't prevent heart attacks, strokes, hospitalizations or deaths any better than sleeping without the machine.
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