Research

Hormonal

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) significantly reduces 24-hour mean arterial blood pressure in patients with moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea, even when cardiovascular risk factors are well-managed with pharmacotherapy.

If you have moderate-to-severe sleep apnea and high blood pressure or heart disease, using CPAP at night can lower your blood pressure, even if you are already taking blood pressure medications. While the drop in blood pressure is modest (about 2-3 mmHg), it is a proven benefit. Supplemental oxygen alone does not provide this blood pressure benefit, so CPAP remains the superior treatment for cardiovascular risk reduction in this population.

StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
In patients with cardiovascular disease or multiple cardiovascular risk factors, the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea with CPAP, but not nocturnal supplemental oxygen, resulted in a significant reduction in blood pressure.
Daniel J. Gottlieb et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 2014

Why this rating

Randomized, controlled trial with 318 participants, published in NEJM.

Source

CPAP versus Oxygen in Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Daniel J. Gottlieb et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 2014

DOI 10.1056/nejmoa1306766

rct · n=318Cited 355×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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