Friday, September 22 2006 15:32 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: People with sleep-related breathing disorders could face depression, says a study.

Paul Peppard and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied about 1,400 adults (aged 30-60) for up to 16 years.

Compared to participants who did not have breathing problems during sleep, those with moderate problems or worse sleep breathing problems were 2.6 times more likely to become depressed during the study, the researchers said.

The odds were also high for participants with less severe cases of sleep-related breathing disorder, reported the online edition of health magazine WebMD.

Compared with sleepers who breathe easily, those with mild sleep-related breathing disorder were twice as likely to become depressed during the study.

By the same comparison, those with minimal breathing problems were 60 percent as likely to become depressed during the study.

Doctors should watch for depression in patients with sleep-related breathing disorder, the researchers said.