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Clinical InvestigationsAdiposity and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Men With Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Section snippets
Subjects
Men, 18 to 65 years old, were candidates for the study if they had been assigned the diagnosis of OSA on the basis of clinical evaluation and overnight polysomnography at the Rhode Island Hospital Sleep Disorders Center. All subjects had been referred for evaluation of daytime somnolence, loud snoring, or apneic spells during sleep. Patients were excluded from the study if they had COPD, autoimmune disorders, liver disease, malignancy, renal insufficiency, drug or alcohol abuse, chronic
Subject Characteristics
Clinical characteristics of the study sample are shown in Table 1. In terms of age, BMI, severity of sleep apnea, and reported history of hypertension or diabetes, the study participants did not differ significantly from the men with OSA who did not participate in the study. Figure 1 shows the distributions of various measures of body mass (weight, BMI) and adiposity (skinfold thickness). More than 65 percent of the patients were obese, as defined by BMI or weight greater than the 85th
DISCUSSION
In this study the men with OSA were remarkably obese according to standard skinfold thickness criteria, but the extent of their adiposity was not always evident from weight and BMI measurements. In addition, a majority of the men were characterized as having severe upper-body obesity, a condition associated with high cardiovascular risk. The patients' excessive adiposity and the strong correlation between skinfold thickness and breathing abnormalities are also consistent with a role for obesity
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank Anna Iosiphidis for providing technical support and Joan Paiva for her expert secretarial assistance.
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This study was supported in part by Biomedical Research Support grant 507RR05862-08.
Manuscript received April 28; revision accepted Sentember 15.