How effective is weight loss for treating sleep apnea

[sleepyruss]

Hello all!

I'm sure this has been asked...

I am a 43 y/o male, 5 foot 7 inches and about 185 lbs - which puts me about 25 lbs overweight. My AHI during the sleep study was mild at 10. AHI is 2-3 on the machine...

I am curious if any of you could offer any input as to how effective weight loss is in curing or helping with sleep apnea. I have read in some places that it helps and then I meet people who have severe sleep apnea and are as big around as a #2 pencil.

What say you?

Thanks.

Russ

[49er]

Hello all!

I'm sure this has been asked...

I am a 43 y/o male, 5 foot 7 inches and about 185 lbs - which puts me about 25 lbs overweight. My AHI during the sleep study was mild at 10. AHI is 2-3 on the machine...

I am curious if any of you could offer any input as to how effective weight loss is in curing or helping with sleep apnea. I have read in some places that it helps and then I meet people who have severe sleep apnea and are as big around as a #2 pencil.

What say you?

Thanks.

Russ

Hi Russ,

I thought I saw that the chance of success was around 50%. But I could be wrong.

What I alway say to people who ask about this is that losing weight is a win-win situation. If a sleep study determines your apnea is gone after the weight loss, fantastic. But if not, you have still greatly improved your health and at least know you need to continue using the machine.

49er

[Todzo]

OSA seems to come from:

Physical Structure

Inflammation

Muscle Tone

Chemoreflexes

Of these weight affects Inflammation in a more or less direct way (and a couple of indirect ways) – Physical structure in a direct way – and chemoreflexes in an indirect way (changes resistance to breathing).

All of the factors can come from other sources.

Weight loss may or may not “cure” OSA. But it is worth a try.

[BobF4]

OSA, in the morbidly obese, can certainly lessen in severity as weight is lost. I had RNY weight loss surgery in March of 2009, and have lost over 150 pounds from my heaviest weight. In that time, my OSA was reduced in severity, such that I needed a new sleep study to get a new pressure for my machine, not even 18 months of being post-op.

[BlackSpinner]

Studies of people who had weight loss surgery seem to indicate a 49% chance of "curing" you apnea