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Friday, April 13, 2007Calling Mr. Pickwick: Researchers say fat people can't sleep: Nine in every 10 patients awaiting weight-loss surgery suffer from sleep apnea, a much higher percentage than are typically diagnosed, a University Hospitals of Cleveland study has found. In a group of 249 patients followed between December 2003 and August 2005, 19 percent had been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. However, after all the patients were tested in sleep labs before surgery, it was found that 91 percent of those patients actually had the condition. "It's a medical disease that is really under-recognized," said Dr. Peter Hallowell, a University Hospitals bariatric surgeon who led the study with Dr. Thomas Stellato. Obesity has long been seen as a contributing factor for sleep apnea, though Hallowell said most studies have estimated that 30 percent to 50 percent of obese people have sleep apnea. Finding that the percentage appears to be closer to 90 percent is shocking. It's not so shocking. It seems that nearly everyone who has a sleep study comes back with a diagnosis of sleep apnea - and not just among the obese. I think I can count on one hand the number of negative sleep studies I've received since it's become popular. According to the standard population study, the prevalence is about 24% in men, and 9% in women. Maybe I'm just really good at screening my patients for the test. Or maybe the criteria are being applied loosely these days. posted by Sydney on 4/13/2007 10:48:00 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:*shrug* I'm overweight and I've had a negative sleep study. "I could hear you snoring all the way down the hall," the tech said, "but you don't have apnea." :) By 12:13 AM , at
I do. But the !@#$!#@ breathing machine was intolerable to me - the operator kept turning it up so high I could barely exhale at all. By 6:04 PM , at |
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