Wilson, Nancy; Johnson, Steven (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Johnson, Steven (Life Sciences, Microbiology & Molecular Biology)
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States today. Between sixty and ninety percent of diabetics also have sleep apnea. Although both sleep apnea and diabetes engender weight gain, the comorbidity of the two conditions is higher than can be explained by obesity alone.
In this study we explore the advantages of and evidence for the coevolution of diabetes and sleep apnea.
There is a metabolic shift that takes place when the cells of the heart need repair. Normally, hypoxic events cause a shift in heart-cell metabolism toward a high-glucose energy use. This shift mechanism is still fully functional in a diabetic heart cell, but because the underlying diabetes shifts the cellular metabolism to a primarily fatty-acid-based energy use, even a normally functioning hypoxia-induced cascade does not lead to full glucose metabolism or normal cellular repair.
So sleep apnea might serve a useful function in instigating heart tissue repair in cells. This suggests that sleep apnea and diabetes are not just frequently found together, but one condition may be causing the other.
After discussing some of the possible evolutionary drivers for co-adaptation of sleep apnea and diabetes, we examine some of the epigenetic marks associated with the two conditions, laying the groundwork for a better understanding of the underlying etiology.