Abdominal Fat and Sleep Apnea: the Chicken or the Egg?
Response to Pillar and Shehadeh
- From the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Luebeck, Luebeck, Germany
- Corresponding author: Kerstin M. Oltmanns, oltmanns{at}kfg.uni-luebeck.de
I read with great interest the article by Pillar and Shehadeh (1) on the coherences between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) syndrome and associated metabolic alterations apparently linked by obesity. The authors give a good overview of the current literature about sleep disturbances in OSA and various aspects related to the metabolic syndrome, particularly obesity, such as glucose intolerance and insulin resistance. Notwithstanding, as the authors correctly mention, the clinical picture of OSA is characterized by both sleep fragmentation and recurrent hypoxic periods, which were somewhat neglected in their …
