The association of diabetes with progression of sleep‐disordered breathing based on a prospective cohort

Abstract

AbstractAimProspective studies suggest that sleep‐disordered breathing enhances the risk of diabetes. However, it remains unclear whether diabetes could worsen sleep‐disordered breathing.MethodsThe participants from Sleep Heart Health Study underwent two polysomnograms at a 5‐year interval. The relationship of baseline diabetes to change in the apnoea‐hypopnoea index (AHI) was examined based on general linear models, adjusting for demographics, lifestyles, history of hypertension, pulmonary function, length of follow‐up and baseline AHI.ResultsIn total, 161 of the 2603 participants were diagnosed with diabetes at the first polysomnograms. Compared with participants without diabetes, those with diabetes had a higher baseline and larger increases in follow‐up AHI and obstructive apnoea index (oAI). Diabetes increased 2.52 events per hour (95% confidence interval 0.45‐4.59; p = .017) for AHI change and 1.13 events per hour (95% confidence interval 0.04‐2.23; p = .042) for oAI change, respectively. In addition, subgroup analysis suggested that the association was consistent across baseline obstructive sleep apnoea severity and body mass index groups.ConclusionsBaseline diabetes was associated with worsening sleep‐disordered breathing over 5 years, which mainly increased the change in AHI and oAI.