Research

Hormonal

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) independently exacerbates metabolic dysregulation (hypertriglyceridemia, hyperglycemia) and systemic inflammation (elevated C-reactive protein, uric acid) in patients with Metabolic Syndrome, regardless of the presence of daytime sleepiness.

If you have Metabolic Syndrome, you should be screened for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) even if you do not feel sleepy or snore loudly. Untreated OSA independently worsens your blood sugar, triglycerides, and inflammation. Treating OSA (e.g., with CPAP) may help improve these metabolic markers, so discuss sleep testing with your provider as part of your MetS management.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
OSA was independently associated with 2 MetS criteria: triglycerides... and glucose... OSA was also independently associated with increased cholesterol/HDL ratio... uric acid... and C-reactive protein... Excessive daytime sleepiness had no effect on the metabolic and inflammatory parameters.
Luciano F. Drager et al. · PLoS ONE · 2010

Why this rating

Large sample size (n=152) of consecutive patients, rigorous exclusion of confounding medications, and multivariable regression analysis, though cross-sectional design limits causal inference.

Source

The Impact of Obstructive Sleep Apnea on Metabolic and Inflammatory Markers in Consecutive Patients with Metabolic Syndrome

Luciano F. Drager et al. · PLoS ONE · 2010

DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0012065

cross_sectional · n=152Cited 283×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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