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Abstract Introduction Inflammation and oxidative stress are important pathways in the associated downstream obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s. Aspartic acid, an endogenously produced amino acid with anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties, may potentially impact inflammation associated outcomes. This study explored associations between sleep latency (from the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and aspartic acid. Other targeted metabolites with similar anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties as aspartic acid were also explored in persons with OSA. Methods This cross-sectional study included 88 participants newly diagnosed and untreated for OSA that underwent an overnight in-lab or at home sleep study recruited from the Emory Mechanisms of Sleepiness Symptoms Study (EMOSS). Fasting morning blood plasma samples were collected after an overnight sleep study. A multiple linear regression model was utilized to examine the association between metabolites of interest and sleep latency, controlling for baseline covariates of age, sex, body mass index (BMI), race, smoking status, and apnea hypopnea index (AHI). Results The mean age was 50.1 (13.1), the mean BMI was 36.2 (9.2), mean AHI was 33.2 (26.2), and 56% were male. Almost half (43%) reported hypertension, and 6.8% reported heart failure; other demographics include 5.7% and 1.1% for stroke and myocardial infarction, respectively. We observed no statistically significant associations between aspartic acid and sleep latency. Other targeted metabolites of interest with similar properties to aspartic acid that were explored included C16 ceramides, sphinganine, and sphingosine-1-phosphate, which were also not associated with sleep latency. Conclusion Targeted metabolites within the inflammatory and oxidative stress pathways were not associated with sleep latency in persons with OSA. Future work should explore whether or not other inflammation or oxidative-stress related metabolites or pathways may have a role in order to improve sleep. Support (if any)
Zhou et al. (Sat,) studied this question.