Losing weight an effective way to treat obstructive sleep apnea

Washington, February 8: According to a new study, overweight people with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) should start losing weight, for that's the most effective way to reduce OSA symptoms and associated disorders.

Sleep apnea, a condition where people stop breathing during sleep, has two forms — obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea. For obstructive sleep apnea, which is much more common, losing weight has shown to improve symptoms.

This option is a good therapy because of its short and long-term benefits and its relatively low cost structure. Other alternatives to battle the disease are either too expensive or tiresome. Surgery does not last long and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines are only partially effective. Most of the other devices have shown disappointing results.

Henri P.I. Tuomilehto, of the department of Otorhinolaryngology at the Kuopio University Hospital in Finland said, "Very low calorie diet (VLCD) combined with active lifestyle counseling resulting in marked weight reduction is a feasible and effective treatment for the majority of patients with mild OSA, and the achieved beneficial outcomes are maintained at 1-year follow up.”

A random trial on 81 patients with mild OSA was carried out by researchers.

They observed 40 patients who were in the intervention arm. The participants underwent a strict limited diet of caloric intake. This was combined with lifestyle counseling, losing and maintaining weight loss of more than 20 pounds. These patients showed lower symptoms of OSA.

Another 41 patients in the control arm, who only received lifestyle counseling and lost less than 6 pounds, showed much less improvements in their OSA.

Besides improving OSA, sustained weight loss also demonstrated an improvement in hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

"This is emphasized by our findings that, in conjunction with the improvement in AHI, significant improvements were also found in symptoms related to OSA, insulindefine resistance, lipids, and cardio respiratory variables, such as arterial oxygen saturation, in patients belonging to the intervention group," stated Tuomilehto.

He added, "The greater the change in body weight or waist circumference, the greater was the improvement in OSA. This appears to be a fairly straightforward relationship, and while we would not necessarily recommend the severe caloric restriction used in our study to every patient, one of the first treatments for OSA that should be considered in the overweight patient is clearly weight loss."

Sleep apnea is a condition when your oxygen drops while you are sleeping and you stop breathing for 10 seconds or longer. It is like your breath gets caught in your throat. You choke on the air and often wake from your sleep. Sleep apnea causes irregular heartbeats, makes you more likely to suffer from a heart attack or a stroke and is potentially fatal.

The study has been published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, one of the American Thoracic Society's three peer-reviewed journals.