• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Thursday, March 30, 2023
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

New solution for sleep apnoea

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
July 2, 2021
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Existing medications can reduce severity by ‘at least 30%’

IMAGE

Credit: The Hospital Research Foundation, South Australia

In an Australian world-first, researchers have successfully repurposed two existing medications to reduce the severity of sleep apnoea in people by at least 30 per cent.

Affecting millions around the world, sleep apnoea is a condition where the upper airway from the back of the nose to the throat closes repetitively during sleep, restricting oxygen intake and causing people to wake as often as 100 times or more per hour.

Those with untreated sleep apnoea are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, dementia and depression, and are two to four times more likely to crash a car than the general population.

Despite almost thirty years of research, there are no approved drug therapies to treat the condition.

Professor Danny Eckert, Principal Research Scientist at NeuRA and Professor and Director of Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health at Flinders University, has brought scientists one step closer by repurposing two existing medications to test their efficacy in people in sleep apnoea.

Previous research showed two classes of medication, reboxetine and butylbromide, were able to keep muscles active during sleep in people without sleep apnoea, and assist their ability to breathe.

By repurposing the medications, researchers used a multitude of recording instruments to measure whether reboxetine and butylbromide could successfully target the main causes of sleep apnoea.

This included balancing the electrical activity of muscles around the airway, preventing the throat from collapsing while people were sleeping, and improving the regulation of carbon dioxide and breathing during sleep.

Results from the study showed these medications did in fact increase the muscle activity around participants’ airways, with the drugs reducing the severity of participants’ sleep apnoea by up to one-third.

“Almost everyone we studied had some improvement in sleep apnoea,” said Professor Eckert.

“People’s oxygen intake improved, their number of breathing stoppages was a third or more less. We were thrilled because the current treatment options for people with sleep apnoea are limited and can be a painful journey for many,” he said.

These new findings allow researchers to further refine these types of medications so that they have even greater benefit than what has currently been found.

“Next, we will look at the effects of these and similar medications over the longer term. We will assess whether we can harness the benefits of one drug without needing to use them both.

“Equally, we will test whether these treatments can be combined with other existing medications to see if we can improve their efficacy even more,” said Professor Eckert.

Until now, the main therapy for sleep apnoea involves wearing a mask to bed, or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Therapy (CPAP), which benefits millions.

However, many people find it uncomfortable and half the people that try it find it hard to tolerate. Plus, the efficacy of second line therapies, such as mouthguards fitted by dentists, can be unpredictable and expensive.

###

This study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC).

The article, The noradrenergic agent reboxetine plus antimuscarinic hyoscine butylbromide reduces sleep apnoea severity: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised crossover trial (2021) by Richard Lim, Ludovico Messineo, Ronald R. Grunstein, Jayne C. Carberry, Danny J. Eckert has been published in the Journal of Physiology DOI: 10.1113/JP281912

About NeuRA

Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) is an independent, not-for-profit research institute based in Sydney aiming to prevent, treat and cure brain and nervous system diseases, disorders and injuries through medical research. https://www.neura.edu.au/

About Flinders

The Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health at Flinders University conducts world-class research and teaching in respiratory and non-respiratory sleep disorders to improve health through the science of sleep. https://www.flinders.edu.au/adelaide-institute-sleep-health

Media Contact
Professor Danny Eckert
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1113/JP281912

Tags: Clinical TrialsMedicine/HealthMental HealthneurobiologyNeurochemistrySleep/Sleep Disorders
Share13Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

New procedure helps patients avoid leg amputation

New procedure helps patients avoid leg amputation

March 30, 2023
Antibiotic Study Image

New Intermountain, Stanford study finds excess harm from commonly overprescribed antibiotics for patients resulting in widespread side effects

March 30, 2023

New mechanisms and therapeutic possibilities for heart failure uncovered by scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and Johns Hopkins University

March 30, 2023

How to achieve a functional cure for chronic hepatitis B

March 30, 2023
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • ChatPandaGPT

    Insilico Medicine brings AI-powered “ChatPandaGPT” to its target discovery platform

    67 shares
    Share 27 Tweet 17
  • Northern and southern resident orcas hunt differently, which may help explain the decline of southern orcas

    44 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 11
  • Skipping breakfast may compromise the immune system

    43 shares
    Share 17 Tweet 11
  • Extinction of steam locomotives derails assumptions about biological evolution

    36 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Prototype taps into the sensing capabilities of any smartphone to screen for prediabetes

New procedure helps patients avoid leg amputation

New Intermountain, Stanford study finds excess harm from commonly overprescribed antibiotics for patients resulting in widespread side effects

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 48 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In