Obstructive Sleep Apnea Cure With Low Calorie Diet

sleep apnea can be cured with weight loss

More evidence of how losing weight can improve sleep has been gathered by researchers in Sweden. The randomised and controlled clinical trial looked at around 60 obese men and monitored their sleeping patterns when their diet was changed. Thirty of the men who had a BMI of between 30 and 40 were told to follow a low calorie liquid diet for a 7 week period followed by a 2 week slow reintroduction to a normal diet. The other 30 men were used as a control group and their diet wasn't changed.

At the beginning of the research project the researchers noted that the average apnea hypopnea index or AHI was 37 in both the control group and study group which means that there was an average of 37 instances of stopped or shallow breathing for each hour of sleep. Anything less than five is considered to be normal and anything over 30 is considered to be severe sleep apnea.

At the end of the study the average AHI had dropped significantly for the study group to 12 compared to 35 in the control group. Five of the participants in the study group were completely cured of the obstructive sleep apnea with scores of less than 5. The other good news is that the diet had a significant effect on their weight with the men losing an average of 41lb. in weight where as the control group actually gained an average of 2.4lb.

Professor Kari Johansson and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, had their research published in the British Medical Journal.  They said that it was the first clear evidence that both moderate and severe obstructive sleep apnea can be cured in the short term with weight loss and they suspected that should the weight loss be permanent the sleep apnea was very unlikely to come back.

Obese people should be made aware that their weight will impact significantly on the quality of sleep they get which in turn will make them more tired throughout the day, and thus more likely to crave high calorie snacks creating a vicious circle of weight gain.