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When it comes to health complications and disorders, researchers have looked into the roles of several environmental and genetic factors on top of diets and lifestyles. In more recent research, doctors have studied the role of race in contributing to certain health factors. According to a study with senior investigator James Rowley, Ph.D., African American men appear to be at a higher risk for severe cases of sleep apnea, which is a sleeping disorder that occurs when the individual has difficulty breathing while asleep. The research team even took out the variable of body mass index (BMI) and found that this correlation was still strong.

"The results show that in certain age groups, after correcting for other demographic factors, the severity of sleep apnea as measured by the apnea-hypopnea index is higher in African-American males than Caucasian males," said Rowley, professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and medical director of the of the Detroit Receiving Hospital Sleep Disorders Center in Michigan.

The apnea-hypopnea index (API) measures the pauses of breaths during sleep that is often associated with a decrease in blood oxygenation. The research team received data composing of 512 patients who were a part of a sleep center study from July 1996 to February 1999. The patients were required to be over 18-years-old at the time, with an API over than five instances per hour of sleep. They also underwent a full-night polysomnogram, which measures a person's biophysiological changes during sleep. The research team used this data and performed a statistical analysis to observe whether or not there was a relationship between AHI and race. They controlled for age, BMI, gender and comorbidities.

The researchers found that African American men that were younger than 40 had an AHI of 3.21 higher than Caucasian men that were around the same age. For African American men between 50 and 59 years old, the average AHI was 2.79 higher. The researchers found no differences between the AHI in African Americans and Caucasian women. The sample set composed of 340 African Americans and 172 Caucasians.

Despite this finding, the researchers could not explain why sleep apnea was more severe in African American men. The researchers did acknowledge that they found a correlation and not a causal relationship and thus, race might not be directly influencing API.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.