Risk of incident gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in patients with sleep disorders: A population-based cohort study

Background. Sleep disorders pose a serious threat to human, which may cause variety diseases. Recent reviews on the epidemiology examines that gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) have different levels of causality about asthma, chronic dry cough, sleep apnea, non-cardiac chest pain, chest tightness, chronic bronchitis. The relationship between sleep disorders and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) has been explained in various ways, but only limited reports on the complication rates in Taiwan. The objective of this study is to evaluate the risk of incident gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in Taiwanese people with sleep disorders.Methods. We used the Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database to conduct a nationwide population-based cohort study to assess the risk of incident GERD in people with sleep disorders.Results. A total of 66133 sleep disorders patients and 264,532 non-sleep disorders controls were included. Sleep disorders was a risk factor of incident GERD (adjusted hazard ratio being 1.722, 95% CI: 1.69-1.76, p<0 .001) after controlling potential confounders including age, gender, and comorbidities.Conclusions. In conclusion, patients with sleep disorders had a significantly higher incidence of GERD than those without sleep disorders.