Corticosteroid insensitivity in asthma associated with obstructive sleep apnoea: Role of oxidative stress and histone acetylation.

Summary: People with asthma who also have sleep apnea often find that their asthma inhalers (steroids) don't work as well as they should. Why does this happen? Sleep apnea causes low oxygen levels at night, which creates "oxidative stress" (a type of cellular damage) in the body. This stress lowers the amount of a special protein called HDAC2, which is necessary for the asthma medicine to do its job. The good news is that researchers discovered that using antioxidants can help fix this problem, potentially allowing the asthma medicine to work effectively again!