- A new study reveals that hotter temperatures, exacerbated by the climate crisis, could significantly increase the prevalence and severity of sleep apnoea.
- Researchers found a 45 per cent increase in the likelihood of experiencing sleep apnoea on hotter nights, based on an analysis of over 58 million nights of sleep data from 116,000 people across 29 countries.
- The study, published in Nature Communications, indicates that rising temperatures could worsen obstructive sleep apnoea, a disorder affecting nearly a billion people worldwide and linked to heart disease, dementia, and early death.
- In 2023, rising temperatures were linked to approximately 800,000 healthy life years lost across the studied countries, resulting in an estimated economic loss of around $98 billion.
- Researchers plan to investigate interventions such as access to cooling and behavioural adaptations.
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