CPAP Treatment For Sleep Apnea Can Improve Depression Symptoms, Study Shows

Treating sleep apnea can also reduce severity of depression in people with both problems, a new study notes.

Researchers from University of Western Australia treated 293 people suffering obstructive sleep apnea with continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP) for three months. They found that depression symptoms in most patients had shown big improvement, reports NYC Today. Nearly 228 had shown improvement.

"Depressive symptoms are common in Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and related to its severity. They improve markedly with CPAP, implying a relationship to untreated OSA," researchers wrote in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.

Sleep apnea affects 25 million American adults. If untreated, it can increase risk of heart diseases, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and even depression, reports Nature World Report.

Studies in the past established a strong link between depression and sleep apnea, with one study predicting that the depressed have five-times increased risk of OSA.

Chronic sleep apnea is diagnosed through sleep studies. The first symptom is excessing snoring. It is often treated with a CPAP machine that uses air pressure to keep the airways from closing.