Sleep Apnea and Type 2 Diabetes: A Vicious Circle
Sleep Apnea and Type 2 Diabetes: A Vicious Circle
by Ralph Pascualy, M.D.
Diabetes Self Management
The epidemic of diabetes in the United States is being fueled by multiple medical, social, and demographic forces. Among those forces is sleep apnea, which is now recognized as a major contributor to the development of diabetes. In sleep apnea, people stop breathing for periods of 10 seconds or more while they’re asleep, sometimes hundreds of times a night. These periods without breathing, known as apneas, both disrupt sleep and lower the level of oxygen in the blood. When breathing restarts after an apnea, it is generally with a loud gasp or snort.
People with sleep apnea are more than twice as likely to have diabetes as those who don’t. In addition, 50% of men with Type 2 diabetes have sleep apnea, compared to an estimated 4% of middle-aged men overall. Several recent studies have suggested that insulin sensitivity—the body’s ability to respond to insulin—decreases as sleep apnea severity increases.
A high body-mass index (BMI, a measure of body mass that takes both height and weight into consideration) is a risk factor for both sleep apnea and diabetes.
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