Sleep Apnea May Persist after Surgical Weight Loss
Sleep apnea is a chronic medical condition in which the afflicted person repeatedly stops breathing during sleep, and this is commonly due to excessive weight causing the airway to collapse. The correlation between sleep apnea and excessive weight is clear, but can weight loss surgery cure the ills of sleep apnea?
In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, weight loss surgery was found to reduce weight and the severity of sleep apnea, but it may still persist.
Twenty-four patients who were to undergo bariatric surgery were studied with polysomnography before and 1 year after their procedures. Weight loss reduced the number of apnea and hypopnea (a lesser degree of apnea) events from 47.9 to 24.5 events per hour. Only 1 patient experienced complete resolution of the sleep apnea. The others continued to have moderate or severe disease.
Continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, is the treatment of choice for sleep apnea and consists of providing a flow of air to keep the airway from collapsing. The CPAP pressure needs of subjects in this study did decrease from 11.5 to 8.4 centimeters of water pressure on average. This might be expected to improve their compliance to therapy, however only 25% of patients were actually compliant.
Therefore, though weight loss surgery is effective in reducing weight and the severity of sleep apnea, it does not cure it after one year in most cases. It may reduce the CPAP pressure needed to treat the disease, and this may make it more tolerable to patients who are having difficulties complying with the therapy.
Comments
Wow! Only one patient in 24 was completely cured as a result of the bariatric surgery? The rest continued to have moderate to severe sleep apnea?
This is less hopeful than what I’d been advised by my doctor.
Guess that means anyone who’s diagnosed with sleep apnea really needs to become comfortable with their PAP machines.
Thanks for the update!
When I weighed 205 pounds, I snored so loud, my husband thought I was going to cause the house to crash in! He said it almost sounded like a speeding train! lol. I started dieting in 2005 and went from 205 down to 160 pounds. Not bad. 45 lbs, but I knew I wanted and needed to lose more. My snoring was still prevalent, but not quite as bad. I knew that the moderate weight loss did something. Last year, I went from 160, down another 30 pounds to 130 pounds! At 5′5″, I thought this was a good weight, not only for my height but my frame as well. After the most recent weight loss, there has been no snoring, no waking myself up with snorts, no waking my poor husband up anymore either! I was eating myself to death, and I just thank God everyday, that I could stop eating like a pig. losing this weight, helped my snoring dramatically! I coudn’t have done it, w/o Jenny Craig! Thank you Jenny!