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The association between leukocyte telomere lengths and sleep instability based on cardiopulmonary coupling analysis

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to examine the objective association between sleep stability and leukocyte telomere lengths (LTL) using cardiopulmonary coupling (CPC) analysis, which is an electrocardiogram (ECG)-based technique to quantify physiologic sleep stability.

Methods

Three hundred eighty-one healthy subjects were recruited from a community-based cohort study from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES), and the associations between LTL and total quantities of different frequency coupling bands were examined using generalized linear model (GLM) with adjustment of significant covariates.

Results

LTL showed a significant association with elevated narrow-band low frequency coupling (e-LFCNB, a CPC marker of periodic breathing or sleep fragmentation due to pathological respiratory chemoreflex activation) by interacting with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) severity (p value of <0.0001). Especially, sleep stability significantly reduced with shortened LTL in OSA patients (Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) ≥15) based on increased e-LFCNB which had a negative correlation with high-frequency coupling band (HFC), a marker of stable sleep.

Conclusion

The present study suggested that shorter LTL might contribute to reduced sleep stability by interacting with OSA severity due to the stress of chronic sleep fragmentation or invariant sympathetic activity by respiratory chemoreflex activation.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support: This study was supported by the research program funded by the Korean Center for Disease Control, Prevention and the Korean Ministry for Health and Welfare, and the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government. [Grant 2009-E71002-00, 2010-E71001-00, 2011-E71004-00, 2012-E71005-00, NRF-2011-0022344]. The program in Chemoreflex Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, supported by the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Chief Academic Officer’s Research Innovation Initiative.

Conflict of interest

Dr. Thomas is a co-patent holder for an ECG-based analytic technique for phenotyping sleep and sleep apnea; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Dr. Thomas receive royalties from a license to MyCardio, LLC. He also is a patent holder for a method to treat central/mixed forms of apnea with adjunctive low concentration carbon dioxide. He has consulted for, and receives research grant support from DeVilbiss Healthcare in auto-CPAP algorithm development; he consults for GLG Councils in the general area of sleep disorders. The other coauthors have no conflicts of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Human Genomic Study, Korea Unversity Ansan Medical Center, Korea University, Seoul, Korea

    Amy M. Kwon

  2. Department of Foods and Nutrition, Kookmin University, Seoul, Korea

    Inkyung Baik

  3. Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

    Robert J. Thomas

  4. Division of Pulmonary, Sleep and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Korea University Ansan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea

    Chol Shin

Authors
  1. Amy M. Kwon
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  2. Inkyung Baik
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  3. Robert J. Thomas
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  4. Chol Shin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chol Shin.

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Kwon, A.M., Baik, I., Thomas, R.J. et al. The association between leukocyte telomere lengths and sleep instability based on cardiopulmonary coupling analysis. Sleep Breath 19, 963–968 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-014-1110-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-014-1110-x

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