CrossTalk proposal: Metabolic syndrome causes sleep apnoea.

Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a prevalent sleep disorder characterized by upper airway obstruction during sleep, resulting in intermittent breathing pauses despite effort, reduced blood oxygen saturation, hypoxia and arousals. With prevalence in the general population estimated at 17–24% of men and 5–9% of women (Young et al. 1993; Bixler et al. 1998, 2001), OSA has been linked to the key components of the metabolic syndrome: central obesity, insulin resistance (Vgontzas et al. 2000; Coughlin et al. 2004), elevated triglycerides, reduced HDL cholesterol (Coughlin et al. 2004), and elevated blood pressure (Bixler et al. 2000; Coughlin et al. 2004). While many have proposed that inflammation resulting from intermittent hypoxia is the culprit behind the development of metabolic aberrations in those with OSA, obesity and the metabolic syndrome in fact appear to precede the development of the disorder. Rather, considerable evidence suggests that OSA is