Nutritional Rehabilitation and Sleep Apnea in the Obese

In obese patients, OSA prevalence is around 40% in men and 30% in women. Being overweight or obese are independent risk factors for OSA, and the prevalence increases with body mass index (BMI). Weight loss after bariatric surgery is one treatment for OSA, 75% of patients having a reduction in OSA severity or becoming non-apneic. OSA and obesity both induce type 2 diabetes, hypertension and/or nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). A randomized study (Chirinos et al. NEJM 2014) demonstrated a better improvement in blood pressure, triglyceride levels or insulin resistance with weight loss alone or weight loss associated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) than with CPAP alone. We hypothesize a similar effect of nutritional and psychocomportemental rehabilitation on OSA. However, weight loss and blood pressure improvements could be lesser in untreated OSA patients than in treated OSA or non-OSA patients. It has been demonstrated that bariatric surgery reduces medication use such as antihypertensive or antidiabetic drugs, and thus a secondary objective is to determine whether nutritional and psychocomportemental rehabilitation similarly reduces medication use by the overweight and obese.