In Diabetics, Weight Loss Combats Sleep Apnea

Gary D. Foster, from Temple University (Pennsylvania, USA), and colleagues have found that obese men and women with type-2 diabetes who lost weight consequently improve their symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea.  In a year-long study involving 264 men and women with type 2 diabetes, average age 61.2 years and average BMI of 36.7 kg/m2, experiencing sleep apnea (23.2 events per hour), the team implemented either an interventive lifestyle intervention behavioral weight loss program or a set of group sessions of diabetes support and education.  Those in the interventive lifestyle group lost more weight, averaging 10.8 kg, at the one-year mark (as compared to support and education subjects, whose average weight loss was 0.6 kg). Further, in the interventive lifestyle group the sleep apnea symptoms dropped significantly (to stand at 9.7 events per hour); three-times more of the subjects in the interventive lifestyle group (as compared to the number seeing results in the support and education group) enjoyed total remission of obstructive sleep apnea.  The researchers conclude that: “Physicians and their patients can expect that weight loss will result in significant and clinically relevant improvements in [obstructive sleep apnea] among obese patients with type 2 diabetes.”