Link between sleep apnea and increased risk of gout, according to new study

A new study, published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, has found that the risk for gout increases if you suffer from sleep apnea, a condition where your breathing repeatedly pauses while you sleep.

For the study, researchers used the records in a British health database to compare people with and without sleep apnea. They selected a total of 9,865 people with sleep apnea, who had an average age of 54, and matched them to a control group of 43,958 people without the disorder. It was found that after one year, people with sleep apnea were about 50% more likely to have had an attack of gout, compared with the control group.

Gout is triggered by the crystallisation of uric acids within the joints, with the large joint of the big toe, being the most commonly affected area.

Although it is still unclear exactly what the association between gout and sleep apnea is, the researchers suggest two possible explanations – that both conditions share a common risk factor of being overweight or that the link may be related to hypoxia, a complication of sleep apnea that causes a person’s oxygen levels to fall during sleep.

Even for those who do not have sleep apnea, the risk of a gout attack rises at night time, which is understood to be due to the lower body temperatures and dehydration that occurs while we sleep.

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