ABSTRACT
Australian rural community using home
monitoring of breathing.28
Studies have consistently shown that obesity,
especially central obesity, is strongly associated
with sleep-disordered breathing in
adults.24,27,28 Measurements of central obesity
such as waist or neck circumferences are
tightly linked to OSA in sleep clinic
populations.24 In the Busselton Sleep Survey,28
there was a powerful effect of BMI in
increasing the risk of SDB in the community
(Figure 6.2). There are limited data on the
prevalence of sleep apnoea in the obese
population. Data from the Swedish Obese
Subjects (SOS) study, which examined 3034
Odds ratio
25 25-30 30
RDI10
Min SaO290
Snoring50%
odds ratio for BMI25 set at 1.0
subjects with BMI 35 kg/m2, found that
over 50% of obese men and one-third of
obese women reported habitual loud
snoring.15 In the SOS study, a history of
frequent witnessed apnoeas (a sensitive marker
of sleep apnoea in epidemiological studies)
was reported by 33% of men and 12% of
women. The exact prevalence of the spectrum
of sleep-breathing disorders in the obese is
unknown, but it is clear that OSA and related
conditions occur in a very high proportion of
obese subjects.
