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Weight loss can be a sleep apnea treatment

Written by: David Castillo on December 5th, 2009

Weight loss can be a sleep apnea treatment | read this item

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep disorder that is caused by the collapse of upper airways during sleep. The symptoms include pauses in breathing during sleep. Each episode lasts for at least 10 seconds.

Moderate and severe OSA is often linked to vehicular crashes and heart disease. And research has proven its relationship with obesity, as well.

Research from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden are evaluating if the treatment of low-energy diet reduces moderate and severe obstructive sleep apnea in obese men.

The study was conducted on 63 obese men between the ages 30-65 with moderate to severe OSA. These patients were being treated with continuous positive airway pressure.

Thirty men received a liquid very low energy diet for seven weeks to get some weight loss. The next week, these test patients were gradually introduced to normal food dosage. The remaining men acted as a control group and they consistently maintained their usual diet through out the testing stage.

The results indicated that the diet group lost an average of 37 sleep apnea episodes per hour. This group also lost an average of 18.7kg during the nine-week period, while the diet group lost 1.1 kg. At the end of the study, more than three fourths of the diet group were no longer obese.

The research concluded that low-energy diet improves sleep apnea in obese men, with the greatest effect in patients with severe cases.

Source: The Times of India

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