Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Feb 14:14:8.
doi: 10.1186/s40248-019-0172-9. eCollection 2019.

Obstructive sleep apnea and comorbidities: a dangerous liaison

Maria R Bonsignore  1   2 , Pierpaolo Baiamonte  1 , Emilia Mazzuca  1 , Alessandra Castrogiovanni  3 , Oreste Marrone  2
Affiliations
Review

Obstructive sleep apnea and comorbidities: a dangerous liaison

Maria R Bonsignore et al. Multidiscip Respir Med. .

Abstract

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a highly prevalent disease, and is traditionally associated with increased cardiovascular risk. The role of comorbidities in OSA patients has emerged recently, and new conditions significantly associated with OSA are increasingly reported. A high comorbidity burden worsens prognosis, but some data suggest that CPAP might be protective especially in patients with comorbidities. Aim of this narrative review is to provide an update on recent studies, with special attention to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular comorbidities, the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, asthma, COPD and cancer. Better phenotypic characterization of OSA patients, including comorbidities, will help to provide better individualized care. The unsatisfactory adherence to CPAP in patients without daytime sleepiness should prompt clinicians to examine the overall risk profile of each patient in order to identify subjects at high risk for worse prognosis and provide the optimal treatment not only for OSA, but also for comorbidities.

Keywords: COPD; Mortality; asthma; cancer; cardiovascular disease; diabetes; prognosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Not applicable.Not applicable.The authors declare they have no competing interests.Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Retrieval of references by searching PubMed for “obstructive sleep apnea” and comorbidities, 9 Jan 2019
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Differently from other common sleep disorders, 80% of patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) show multiple comorbidities. RLS: restless leg syndrome. Drawn based on data from [5]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lévy P, Kohler M, McNicholas WT, Barbé F, McEvoy RD, Somers VK, Lavie L, Pépin JL. Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2015;1:15015. doi: 10.1038/nrdp.2015.15. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wolk R, Shamsuzzaman AS, Somers VK. Obesity, sleep apnea, and hypertension. Hypertension. 2003;42:1067–1074. doi: 10.1161/01.HYP.0000101686.98973.A3. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Mokhlesi B, Ham SA, Gozal D. The effect of sex and age on the comorbidity burden of OSA: an observational analysis from a large nationwide US health claims database. Eur Respir J. 2016;47:1162–1169. doi: 10.1183/13993003.01618-2015. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Senaratna CV, English DR, Currier D, Perret JL, Lowe A, Lodge C, Russell M, Sahabandu S, Matheson MC, Hamilton GS, Dharmage SC. Sleep apnoea in Australian men: disease burden, co-morbidities, and correlates from the Australian longitudinal study on male health. BMC Public Health. 2016;16(Suppl 1):1029. doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-3703-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Appleton SL, Gill TK, Lang CJ, Taylor AW, McEvoy RD, Stocks NP, González-Chica DA, Adams RJ. Prevalence and comorbidity of sleep conditions in Australian adults: 2016 Sleep Health Foundation national survey. Sleep Health. 2018;4:13–19. doi: 10.1016/j.sleh.2017.10.006. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources