Associations of fat, bone, and muscle indices with disease severity in patients with obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome.

PURPOSE: To investigate the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) severity and fat, bone, and muscle indices.

METHODS

This study included 102 patients with OSAHS and retrospectively reviewed their physical examination data. All patients underwent polysomnography, body composition analysis, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, computed tomography (CT) and blood test. Correlation and multiple linear regression analyses were performed using SPSS 22.0.

RESULTS

Among the fat indices, fat mass (FM) (r = 0.27-0.43), body fat percentage (BFP) (r = 0. 25-0.35), visceral fat area (VFA) (r = 0.28-0.40) and trunk fat mass (TFM) (r = 0.26-0.34) were positively correlated with hypopnea index (HI), apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), oxygen desaturation index (ODI), and percent of time spent with oxygen saturation below 90% (T90%), respectively, and negatively correlated with mean pulse oxygen saturation (SpO2) (r= -0.28--0.41). For bone indexes, T8, T9, T11, L1-CT value, mean vertebral CT value and 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 were positively correlated with mean SpO2 (r = 0.23-0.32), respectively. For muscle indexes, pectoralis muscle density (PMD) was negatively correlated with HI, AHI, and ODI (r= -0.20--0.36) and positively correlated with mean SpO2 (r = 0.26). In separate models predicting sleep measures, AHI increased by 0.36, 0.29, 0.34 and 0.25 events/h per unit increase in FM, BFP, VFA, and triglyceride (TG), respectively. AHI decreased by 0.27 per unit increase in PMD. T90% increased with FM, BFP, VFA, WHR, TG and total cholesterol (TC), but decreased with appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASM) and PMD respectively.

CONCLUSION

Higher fat levels and lower vertebral CT values, muscle mass and density correlated with a higher degree of OSAHS severity. Intermittent hypoxia may affect fat, bone, and muscle metabolism in patients with OSAHS.