From Bicycles to Sleep Cycles: How Professor Danny Eckert’s Pursuit of Peak Performance Led to Major Advances in our Understanding of Sleep
3 min read
Professor Danny Eckert of the Adelaide Sleep Institute at Flinders University didn’t set out to be one of the world’s foremost sleep experts. He started as an elite cyclist, representing Australia at the World Championships. Wanting to use his head as well as his body, he studied exercise physiology and sports science in the afternoons, trained on his mountain bike in the mornings, raced competitively, and presumably left some time for sleep. After receiving his degree, he was offered a prestigious appointment with the South Australia Sports Institute.
But on the Friday before he was due to start his internship, he was also offered a 3-year position with a respiratory and sleep unit in a hospital. When he reported for his new job at the Sports Institute on Monday, he immediately asked his new boss if he could take a walk to consider his options, came back, and left for a field he knew nothing about. “It turned out that everything I’d learned about the body being at its most vulnerable and physiologically interesting when you push it as hard as you can during exercise is also true when you are sleeping and the body is at its quietest.”
Professor Eckert was on fertile ground for his newly chosen field. Australia has long been a leader and innovator in sleep science, especially in respiratory medicine. When he started studying sleep apnea, the research centered on anatomy: the collapse of the upper airway, especially due to obesity. As such, treatments such as Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, (CPAP, invented in Australia), mouthguards, and surgery were designed to open the airway.
Professor Eckert’s groundbreaking work changed nearly everything we thought we knew about sleep apnea. Importantly, he identified three nonanatomical endotypes that can cause sleep apnea. Between them, they account for 70% of sleep apnea cases.
1) Low Arousal Threshold: Light sleepers who wake up when their muscles relax.
2) Instability in Breathing Control: Sleepers who are too sensitive to minor changes in carbon dioxide. Their overactive respiratory system turns off their drive to breathe.
3) Poor Muscle Responsiveness to the Narrowing Airway
Simplified, scalable diagnostic tools and machine learning can identify the endotype(s) that causes a particular patient’s sleep apnea. Endotypes can inform targeted therapies and lead to an 80% success rate for treating sleep apnea. This individualized, precision medicine approach includes emerging pharmaco-therapies, such as drugs that can activate the muscles, or strategies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, that can help light sleepers.
What’s next? With 70 researchers working on 40-50 studies at any one time at the Adelaide Sleep Institute, there are many exciting developments to come. One area of interest is sleep irregularity. Researchers have found varying bedtime by even 30 minutes throughout the week is associated with a 30% higher chance of hypertension; vary by 90 minutes and increase the odds by 90%, regardless of the total amount of sleep.
New technologies that allow longitudinal data are especially useful for studying sleep variability. Combining sleep data with measures like body fat, step counts, and blood pressure will allow for quicker treatment changes, better monitoring of treatment effectiveness, and reach many more people who suffer from sleep disorders.
The three pillars of health are exercise, diet, and sleep, but sleep directly affects the other two. Not getting sufficient or quality sleep makes us crave bad food and makes it hard to exercise. That’s why Dr. Eckert believes sleep is the foundation for optimal health. Through research and scientific and technological breakthroughs, Professor Eckert thinks we are at the precipice of transforming the entire sleep field. That’s a comforting thought for the billions of people around the globe desperate for a good night’s sleep.
Several new, large-scale studies1, 2, 3, 4 from the Flinders Medical Research Institute (FHMRI) in Australia found studying sleep in real-world settings over multiple nights can greatly reduce the high 30% error rate of sleep apnea diagnosis from polysomnography (PSG), the traditional, single night, in hospital gold standard technique. Using Withings Sleep Analyzer, researchers were able to easily track multiple biomarkers for participants over time revealing large variability in sleep indicators from night to night.
Withings under-the-mattress sleep trackers have enabled researchers to study large groups over time. The FHMRI studies tracked 67,278 and 12,287 participants respectively over a total of 11 million nights, a feat not feasible with traditional polysomnography.
A key finding from the study of 12,000 users is the variability in the severity of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) from night to night. The variability of OSA, independent of severity, is associated with uncontrolled hypertension which is the leading cardiovascular risk factor. Sleep Analyzer also reveals other risks associated with hypertension, such as snoring, irregular waking and sleep hours, and duration of sleep.
Using the same hardware technology as Withings Sleep Analyzer, Sleep Rx is a noninvasive, at home device that users place under their mattresses to gather biomarkers such as heart rate, respiratory rate, snoring, sleep cycles, and the Withings Sleep Index, a measure of breathing events per hour, which can aid in the diagnosis of sleep apnea. Using this simple device for at least 14 nights gives a much clearer picture of sleep quality.
The multi-night Sleep Rx data can be used to predict the right patients at the right time for in hospital PSG. Better identification of patients who most need PSG will reduce overall spending on the costly tests and ease scheduling difficulties.
Sleep Rx offers an inexpensive, easy to use method to better target high risk cardiovascular patients, reduce the high error rate of sleep apnea diagnosis, and efficiently gather longitudinal, large-scale sleep data for a variety of chronic diseases. For more information about the Withings Sleep Rx, click here.
1 Lechat, Bastien et al. “Multinight Prevalence, Variability, and Diagnostic Misclassification of Obstructive Sleep Apnea.” American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine vol. 205,5 (2022): 563-569. doi:10.1164/rccm.202107-1761OC
2 Lechat, Bastien et al. “High night-to-night variability in sleep apnea severity is associated with uncontrolled hypertension.” NPJ digital medicine vol. 6,1 57. 30 Mar. 2023, doi:10.1038/s41746-023-00801-2
3 Lechat, Bastien et al. “Regular snoring is associated with uncontrolled hypertension.” NPJ digital medicine vol. 7,1 38. 17 Feb. 2024, doi:10.1038/s41746-024-01026-7
4 Scott, Hannah et al. “Sleep Irregularity Is Associated With Hypertension: Findings From Over 2 Million Nights With a Large Global Population Sample.” Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. : 1979) vol. 80,5 (2023): 1117-1126. doi:10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.122.20513
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[post_title] => Sleep Apnea Data from Multiple Nights is Key to Predicting Hypertension and Cardiovascular Risk
[post_excerpt] => New large-scale, longitudinal studies show that monitoring sleep for at least 14 nights at home with a connected sleep tracking mat, can reduce the 30% high error rate of sleep apnea diagnosis from the usual single-night, in hospital polysomnography (PSG) technique. This technology can identify which patients most need expensive, intrusive, and difficult to access PSG. Longitudinal data also detects variability of Obstructive Sleep Apnea from night to night which is associated with hypertension
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Partner
Asten Santé
Challenge
Enhance the level of standard home healthcare services and offer a unique solution to healthcare professionals.
Solution
Withings Sleep Analyzer
Results
50% of patients express a desire to purchase a Sleep Analyzer and recruitment of new physicians.
“By adding Sleep Analyzer to our personalized monitoring, the patient can have a 360° view of their sleep quality as well as a better understanding of the product’s positive impact on their treatment. We have noticed enhanced engagement and adherence to treatment after just a few days, which then continues over time."
Emilie Cottet, Asten Santé, Marketing and Digital Offer Director
BACKGROUND
Asten Santé originated in the 1970s as a response to the establishment of medical associations focused on enabling ventilator-dependent patients to receive care in their homes rather than hospitals. Today, Asten Santé operates as part of the La Poste group and addresses various healthcare concerns, including respiratory failure, sleep apnea, diabetes, infusion therapy, and artificial nutrition.
CHALLENGE
In the context of sleep apnea, Asten Santé’s teams were looking for innovative solutions to enhance the level of standard home healthcare services, while also offering a unique proposition to healthcare professionals caring for patients.
Sleep apnea is a condition that is characterized by shallow breathing and/or breathing disturbances of varying severity during sleep. Also known as obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), this condition can lead to the development of long term health issues like high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, or diabetes, if not treated properly. In the short term, lack of sleep due to OSAS can also lead to daytime fatigue that may be responsible for accidents, reduced quality of life and reduced cognitive function as relates to memory or work productivity. The most common treatment is the continuous positive airway pressure machine (CPAP), which is a mask worn during the night that ensures consistent airflow into the airways (1).
One of the challenges that comes along with the implementation of CPAP treatment is patient acceptance and adherence to treatment. According to the ALASKA study, conducted by ResMed on a cohort of French patients, the level of new patient adherence was found to be quite low — about 48% stopped their treatment
after 3 years (2).
As a home healthcare provider and medical prescriber, Asten Santé sets up regular at-home visits with sleep apnea experts for their patients in order to explain the treatment process, install the CPAP machine and address any difficulties they might encounter. In this setting, the teams sought an innovative way to engage patients in their treatment and raise awareness of its importance. This is how the partnership between Withings Health Solutions and Asten Santé began.
SOLUTION
Doctors can now direct their patients to use Withings Sleep Analyzer, a clinically validated sleep tracker, while they’re at home (3,4).
Sleep Analyzer is installed under the patient’s mattress. Once it is installed, there’s nothing else the patient has to do. The device is able to record and analyze the patient’s sleep, as if they were at a sleep lab. It tracks vital parameters like heart rate, respiratory rate and movement. This way, the patient can get a precise view of their sleep cycles, sleep score, continuous heart rate and breathing. Sleep Analyzer also detects sleep apnea and classifies its severity on the scale of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), which is considered to be the global standard (5).
From a clinical point of view, one of its strengths is the capacity to record extended sleep data in a secure and non-invasive way. In regards to the apnea-hypopnea index, Sleep Analyzer allows doctors to take the variability between different nights of sleep into account — a factor which is responsible for 20% to 50% of OSAS severity classification errors (6).
Every day, patients can consult their sleep information directly on the Withings app. They are able to follow changes in their sleep patterns and better adhere to their treatment.
“The partnership between Asten Santé and Withings Health Solutions has been revolutionary in the way we treat sleep apnea. Withings Sleep Analyzer offers in-depth sleep analysis for patients, which helps them understand the importance of their treatment and how to adhere to it. It is a significant advancement in the field of home healthcare.”
Pr. Pierre Escourrou, Cardiologist
Patients can use their Sleep Analyzer for 4 months. After this allotted time, they can buy the product from Asten Santé if they wish to continue monitoring their sleep.
“I was skeptical about the idea of adding another device into my patients’ daily life. But in reality, it was so easy to use that it helped them understand the importance of wearing their sleep apnea machine.”
Medical representative at Asten Santé
RESULTS
The partnership between Asten Santé and Withings Health Solutions led to a new treatment approach in the home healthcare field. This innovative synergy between CPAP treatment and the Sleep Analyzer empowers patients to actively participate in their treatment journey from the very beginning, significantly enhancing their acceptance and adherence to the therapy. Remarkably, over 50% of patients express a desire to purchase a Sleep Analyzer upon completing the program, enabling them to closely monitor their treatment progress independently.
This innovative offering from Asten Santé stands out to doctors and in the home healthcare providers field. Johan Dupuis, the national expert in respiratory care, emphasized how this has allowed Asten Santé to successfully recruit new doctors, which in turn has led to the recruitment of new patients and the realization of the overarching goal of the initiative.
50%
of patients express a desire to purchase a Sleep Analyzer upon completing the program
“Our collaboration with Asten Santé shows how Withings technology can improve adherence to sleep apnea treatment by offering innovative tools to home healthcare providers that distinguish themselves on the market.”
Paul De Villele, Clinical Affairs Manager at Withings
1. Andre Faria and al., « The Public Health Burden of Obstructive Sleep Apnea », Sleep Science (Sao Paulo, Brazil) 14, no 3 (2021): 257-65, https://doi.org/10.5935/1984-0063.20200111 2. Jean-Louis Pépin and al., « CPAP Therapy Termination Rates by OSA Phenotype: A French Nationwide Database Analysis », Journal of Clinical Medicine 10, no 5 (1st of March 2021): 936, https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10050936 3. Paul Edouard and al., « Validation of the Withings Sleep Analyzer, an under-the-Mattress Device for the Detection of Moderate-Severe Sleep Apnea Syndrome », Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 17, no 6 (Junes 2021): 1217-27, https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.9168 4. Rui-Yi Yang and al., « Pneumatic sensor for cardiorespiratory monitoring during sleep », Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express 5, no 5 (23rd of August 2019): 055014, https://doi.org/10.1088/2057-1976/ab3ac9 5. Vishesh K. Kapur et al., « Clinical Practice Guideline for Diagnostic Testing for Adult Obstructive Sleep Apnea: An American Academy of Sleep Medicine Clinical Practice Guideline », Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine: JCSM: Official Publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine 13, no 3 (15th of March 2017): 479-504, https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.6506 6. Bastien Lechat et al., « Multinight Prevalence, Variability, and Diagnostic Misclassification of Obstructive Sleep Apnea », American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 205, no 5 (1st of March 2022): 563-69, https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.202107-1761OC
[post_title] => Improving adherence to sleep apnea treatment - An innovative collaboration between Asten Santé and Withings Health Solutions
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Several new, large-scale studies1, 2, 3, 4 from the Flinders Medical Research Institute (FHMRI) in Australia found studying sleep in real-world settings over multiple nights can greatly reduce the high 30% error rate of sleep apnea diagnosis from polysomnography (PSG), the traditional, single night, in hospital gold standard technique. Using Withings Sleep Analyzer, researchers were able to easily track multiple biomarkers for participants over time revealing large variability in sleep indicators from night to night.
Withings under-the-mattress sleep trackers have enabled researchers to study large groups over time. The FHMRI studies tracked 67,278 and 12,287 participants respectively over a total of 11 million nights, a feat not feasible with traditional polysomnography.
A key finding from the study of 12,000 users is the variability in the severity of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) from night to night. The variability of OSA, independent of severity, is associated with uncontrolled hypertension which is the leading cardiovascular risk factor. Sleep Analyzer also reveals other risks associated with hypertension, such as snoring, irregular waking and sleep hours, and duration of sleep.
Using the same hardware technology as Withings Sleep Analyzer, Sleep Rx is a noninvasive, at home device that users place under their mattresses to gather biomarkers such as heart rate, respiratory rate, snoring, sleep cycles, and the Withings Sleep Index, a measure of breathing events per hour, which can aid in the diagnosis of sleep apnea. Using this simple device for at least 14 nights gives a much clearer picture of sleep quality.
The multi-night Sleep Rx data can be used to predict the right patients at the right time for in hospital PSG. Better identification of patients who most need PSG will reduce overall spending on the costly tests and ease scheduling difficulties.
Sleep Rx offers an inexpensive, easy to use method to better target high risk cardiovascular patients, reduce the high error rate of sleep apnea diagnosis, and efficiently gather longitudinal, large-scale sleep data for a variety of chronic diseases. For more information about the Withings Sleep Rx, click here.
1 Lechat, Bastien et al. “Multinight Prevalence, Variability, and Diagnostic Misclassification of Obstructive Sleep Apnea.” American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine vol. 205,5 (2022): 563-569. doi:10.1164/rccm.202107-1761OC
2 Lechat, Bastien et al. “High night-to-night variability in sleep apnea severity is associated with uncontrolled hypertension.” NPJ digital medicine vol. 6,1 57. 30 Mar. 2023, doi:10.1038/s41746-023-00801-2
3 Lechat, Bastien et al. “Regular snoring is associated with uncontrolled hypertension.” NPJ digital medicine vol. 7,1 38. 17 Feb. 2024, doi:10.1038/s41746-024-01026-7
4 Scott, Hannah et al. “Sleep Irregularity Is Associated With Hypertension: Findings From Over 2 Million Nights With a Large Global Population Sample.” Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. : 1979) vol. 80,5 (2023): 1117-1126. doi:10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.122.20513
Interested in partnering with us?
Contact Us
[post_title] => Sleep Apnea Data from Multiple Nights is Key to Predicting Hypertension and Cardiovascular Risk
[post_excerpt] => New large-scale, longitudinal studies show that monitoring sleep for at least 14 nights at home with a connected sleep tracking mat, can reduce the 30% high error rate of sleep apnea diagnosis from the usual single-night, in hospital polysomnography (PSG) technique. This technology can identify which patients most need expensive, intrusive, and difficult to access PSG. Longitudinal data also detects variability of Obstructive Sleep Apnea from night to night which is associated with hypertension
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Article
Sleep Apnea Data from Multiple Nights is Key to Predicting Hypertension and Cardiovascular Risk