MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Emilia Mazzuca
Biomedical Department of Internal and Specialistic Medicine (DIBIMIS)
Section of Pneumology and
Dr. Maria R Bonsignore, MD
Associate Professor in Respiratory Medicine
University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Our main goal was to investigate gender-related interactions between obstructive sleep apnea (
OSA) and obesity while taking associated metabolic abnormalities into account. We analyzed 423 men and 105 women previously studied for the association of OSA and the Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) (Bonsignore et al, Eur Respir J, 2012), to assess whether markers of general and visceral obesity were differently associated with OSA in men and women. Multivariate analysis showed that in men the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), an indicator of OSA severity, was associated with waist circumference, a marker of visceral obesity, and body mass index (BMI); conversely, in women AHI was associated with hip circumference, a marker of subcutaneous fat deposition, and neck size. The results were similar when patients without a diagnosis of MetS were analyzed; conversely, in patients with MetS, waist circumference was the only significant marker of OSA in both genders.
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