This is especially true for the obese

Dec 5, 2009 01:01 GMT  ·  By
Future studies will determine if weight loss reduces sleep apnea in women as well
   Future studies will determine if weight loss reduces sleep apnea in women as well

A large number of obese men experience the negative side-effects of their condition in the form of sleep apnea – the condition in which the respiratory pathways can become jammed during sleep. This leads to a decrease in their quality of life, and also to long-lasting effects on their brains and general health. According to a new paper published in the latest issue of the respected British Journal of Medicine (BMJ), it may be that relief from this condition may come swiftly, if the patient decides to go on a diet, or take other measures that result in their losing weight, e! Science News reports.

Weight loss apparently has a very beneficial effect in reducing sleep apnea, the researchers behind the new investigation reveal. They add that sleep apnea is regularly caused by the collapse of superior airways, and that each individual apnea episode lasts in excess of ten seconds. This means that, for those time periods, which can occur many times during a night's rest, there is no oxygen intake in the body. If the condition spreads over many years, the cumulative effects could lead to a diminished brain capacity. The cortex does not receive all the oxygenated blood it needs to survive, and slowly begins to shut down functions that are not absolutely necessary for survival.

In the most severe apnea cases, in which patients experience collapses ten to 15 times per hour, the condition can lead to elevated risks of heart failure and death. The condition is made even worse by the fact that there are currently no ways of detecting it, other than having a person brought to a lab, and kept under observation as he or she sleeps. Knowing that only one other investigation had been carried out on the link between obesity and obstructive sleep apnea, researchers at the Karolinska Institute medical university, in Sweden, decided to explore the correlation in more depth.

The new experiments looked at the evolution of 63 obese men, aged 30 to 65, who all had body mass indexes (BMI) of between 30 and 40. Thirty participants were placed on a low-energy, all-liquid diet for more than nine weeks, as researchers looked at the incidence of apnea during sleep. The other 33 test subjects were kept as a control group. The people in the first group lost an average of 18.7 kilograms in weight during the study, whereas the others lost only 1.1 kilograms.

But the good news was that the individuals in the study group showed a reduced incidence of apnea, down to 12 events per hour, from the 37 they exhibited at the beginning of the experiment. Those in the control group displayed a number of 35 apnea events per hour, roughly the same as before, the team concludes.