In a study published Monday in JAMA Neurology, researchers linked obstructive sleep apnea, a condition that causes temporary pauses in breathing during sleep, with Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive nervous system disorder that causes tremors, stiffness, and difficulty speaking, moving and swallowing. It is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease in the United States, after Alzheimer’s disease, with 90,000 people diagnosed each year.

There is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, said Dr. Lee Neilson, a neurologist at Oregon Health &Science University who led the study. But the researchers did find that treating sleep apnea with a continuous positive airway pressure (or CPAP) machine was associated with a reduced likelihood of developing Parkinson’s.

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