Clinical observations of metabolic disturbance in patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypoventilation syndrome

Abstract

Objectives To investigate the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea hypoventilation syndrome (OSAHS), insulin resistance (IR) and metabolic syndrome (MS), as well as to explore the possible mechanism of MS caused by OSAHS. Methods We recruited 186 hospitalized patients with hypertensions, who were divided into four groups based on their nocturnal polygraphs recordings, 35 as controls (group Ⅰ), 61 with mild (group Ⅱ), 52 with moderate (group Ⅲ) and 38 with severe OSAHS (group Ⅳ). They all underwent measurements including body height, body weight, waist circumference (WC), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), serum uric acid, creatinine, fasting plasma glucose, fasting plasma insulin, serum total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterul, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and triglyceride. Results One hundred and two patients with OSAHS (67.6 percent) also suffered of MS, 33 (86.8 percent) of them with severe OSAHS. There was no significant difference in age, gender, fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprutein-cholesterul, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and triglyceride among the four groups (P>0.05). Body mass index (BMI), WC, ratio of serum uric acid to creatinine and DBP were all significantly higher in patients with severe OSAHS than those in patients with mild and moderate OSAHS and controls (P<0.01). SBP was significantly higher in patients with severe OSAHS than that in those with mild and moderate OSAHS (P<0.01). Insulin resistance was significantly severer in patients with severe OSAHS than that in those with mild OSAHS and controls (P<0.01). Results of multivariate linear regression analysis showed that insulin resistance was correlated with BMI and reversely correlated with minimal blood oxygen saturation, and minimal blood oxygen saturation reversely correlated with WC and ratio of uric acid to creatinine. Condusions Hypoxemia and obesity may promote development of insulin resistance. Patients of hypertension complicated with OSAHS tend to develop MS, particularly in those with severe OSAHS. Key words: Sleep apnea,obstructive; Metabolic syndromeX; Insulin resistance