xpap and weight loss

[onecoknower]

I saw someone post the other day that they lost weight on cpap therapy. Really? Anyone know why? Care to share your stories?

[laurie2025]

I have been using my CPAP machine for a couple of months now. I went on Weight Watchers and am in my third week. The first weeks (no weight watchers) I lost nothing. Now, on Weight Watchers, I have lost 7 pounds. The difference is, I am not hungry. I have tried Weight Watchers in the past, and was always starving between meals. I cannot say definitively that there is a connection there, but it seems like it to me. So, when I did nothing but use my CPAP equipment I had no loss, but when I added Weight Watchers, I am having an easy time losing weight, so far.
Good luck!

[pedroski]

Hi Onecoknower,

There's a bunch of links on this subject and I'll just list a few. When we don't get deep sleep our hormones get mucked up (along with everything else) and two hormones in particular are relevant here. They are ghrelin, a hormone that makes us feel hungry, and leptin, which makes us feel full. My clinician told me that the hormone ghrelin is increased by 15% and the leptin is decreased by 15%, a net loss of 30% compared to normal.

I used to be ravenous in the afternoon and evening, but haven't been since starting xpap, which prompted my question to my clinician.

apneanet.org: SLEEP PROBLEMS MAY BE CAUSING YOUR WEIGHT GAIN

Excerpt:
The team of researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi specifically examined this second factor. Peszka noted, "The hypothalamus, a part of the brain involved in many motivated behaviors, may be the link between eating and sleeping. Animal studies have shown evidence for this relationship; however, so far there is very little evidence in humans."

To investigate the possibility that decreased REM sleep is related to obesity in sleep apnea patients, researchers examined the relationship between a patient's weight and a common treatment of OSA, nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP), using 163 patients from Forrest General Hospital's Sleep Disorders Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The researchers' model predicted that patients with the least REM sleep would weigh the most before treatment began, and would show the greatest weight loss with successful nCPAP treatment.

Peszka and her colleagues found evidence to support these predictions. OSA patients with the smallest amount of REM sleep were almost 20 lbs heavier than other patients at the time of diagnosis, and patients with the biggest increase in REM sleep following treatment showed the greatest weight loss at follow-up.



Sleep Loss Boosts Appetite, May Encourage Weight Gain

Excerpt:

By providing the first data on the relationship between sleep and the hormones that regulate hunger, this study helps to confirm and begins to explain the connection.

Van Cauter and colleagues studied 12 healthy male volunteers in their early 20s to see how sleep loss affected the hormones that control appetite. Theses hormones -- ghrelin and leptin, both discovered in the last ten years -- represent the 'yin-yang' of appetite regulation. Ghrelin, made by the stomach, connotes hunger. Leptin, produced by fat cells, connotes satiety, telling the brain when we have eaten enough.

Van Cauter's team measured circulating levels of leptin and ghrelin before the study, after two nights of only four hours in bed (average sleep time 3 hours and 53 minutes) and after two nights of ten hours in bed (sleep time 9 hours and 8 minutes). They used questionnaires to assess hunger and the desire for different food types.

"We were particularly interested in the ratio of the two hormones," said Van Cauter, "the balance between ghrelin and leptin."

After a night with four hours of sleep, the ration of ghrelin to leptin increased by 71 percent compared to a night with ten hours in bed.



Stanford Study Links Obesity To Hormonal Changes From Lack Of Sleep


Excerpt:

Researchers believe that sleep loss impacts several hormones related to appetite and food intake, and two such hormones - ghrelin and leptin - are thought to play a role in the interaction between short sleep duration and high BMI.

Ghrelin, which was discovered five years ago and is primarily produced by the stomach, triggers appetite in humans: the more ghrelin you have, the more you want to eat.

Leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells, is a signal indicating insufficient metabolic reserve and the need for consuming more calories. Low leptin levels are a signal for starvation and increased appetite.


Missed ZZZ's, More Disease?

Excerpt:

"In further experiments, sleep-deprived test volunteers showed other hormonal changes that promote weight gain. Men who were held to 4 hours a night had markedly reduced 24-hour leptin concentrations compared with when they were fully rested, Van Cauter's research team reported at the 2001 Association of Professional Sleep Societies meeting in Chicago. Leptin is a hormone that signals satiety and regulates energy balance; mice that lack leptin overeat and become morbidly obese.

Van Cauter reported that although the men's food intake was adequate, the dip in leptin they exhibited was equivalent to that seen in people underfed by 1,000 calories a day for 3 days. In other words, the leptin signal was telling the men's bodies that they were short nearly a pound's worth of calories. That misleading signal might cue the body to slow metabolism, increase fat deposition, and overstimulate appetite."

Another is here:

viewtopic.php?p=42128&sid=e69e9e9c2b571 ... 80d53f5b16

Cheers

Peter

[GoofyUT]

Nicely done, Peter! Thank you so much for sharing this informative post with us.

I've lost 15% of my weight since starting xPAP 10 months ago.

As Peter summarized above, the reasons why SDB sufferers gain weight are complex and involve lots of physiological systems. But, reducing it to the absurd, the bottom line is that most SDB sufferers are simply so chronically exhausted that we crave food for the energy boost that it provides.

Hope this helps.

Chuck

[emiliog72]

I am new to the whole CPAP world in my case I don't know if the therapy itself has helped me with my weight loss but I think CPAP has contributed to the factors which are helping me loose weight. For instance before CPAP I had a big problem with snacking late in the evening often I would wake up in the middle of the night and head straight for the fridge. That doesn't happen ever since I started CPAP. Secondly, I have much more energy so I am able to work out at least 1 hour/day sometimes more. I actually workout early in the morning which would of been next to impossible before CPAP. Hope this helps.

[JeffH]

I don't know if I've lost any weight or not, but I have noticed that my compulsive evening eating has almost disappeared with better CPAP treatment. Also, my fasting (morning) blood sugar readings have gone from an average of 135 / 155 to 105 yesterday morning and 96 this morning. That's GOT to be an improvement in overall health.

JeffH

[Wulfman]

I'm not a "scale watcher"......I go by how my clothes fit.....and they're getting looser. According to the doctor's scale in Oct. of '05, I had lost 20 lbs. I've taken in a notch or two on my belt and am at the last one. I'm looking forward to making a new hole in it.

Den