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Dietary intake, eating behavior and physical activity in individuals with and without obstructive sleep apnea

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Abstract

Weight loss is one of the first line treatments for people with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA); however, people with OSA may have difficulties losing weight. Few studies have investigated the factors underlying these challenges in people with OSA. The aim of this study was to compare dietary intake, eating behavior and physical activity data in people with OSA and without OSA. Seventy-four patients referred to a sleep disorders clinic for suspected OSA underwent a standard clinical overnight polysomnography and completed questionnaires assessing dietary intake, physical activity and eating behavior prior to treatment. On the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18 patients with OSA (n = 49, AHI 19.5 [13.0–55.4] events/h) had higher levels of uncontrolled eating (adjusted means, 19.7 (0.7) vs 16.1 (1.0): F (1, 69) = 7.103, p = 0.010 partial η2 = 0.093), than those who did not have OSA (n = 25, AHI 3.3 [0.8–4.4] events/h) after adjusting for age, fat mass % and depression. There were no differences between groups in dietary intake measures or physical activity. These results suggest that people with OSA may need specific attention to eating behavior when undergoing weight loss interventions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Fiona Ong for her assistance in collecting data.

Funding

A/Prof Edwards is supported by a Heart Foundation of Australia Future Leader Fellowship (101167). Dr. Wong received an RTP stipend by Monash University for graduate research studies. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Bradley A. Edwards and Garun S. Hamilton jointly supervised this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences and Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Caroline J. Beatty, Shane A. Landry, Luke Thomson & Bradley A. Edwards

  2. Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Shane A. Landry & Bradley A. Edwards

  3. Monash Lung and Sleep, Monash Medical Centre, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Joy Lee, Simon A. Joosten, Anthony Turton, Ai-Ming Wong & Garun S. Hamilton

  4. School of Clinical Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Simon A. Joosten, Ai-Ming Wong & Garun S. Hamilton

  5. Monash Partners-Epworth, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Simon A. Joosten & Garun S. Hamilton

  6. Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, Eastern Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Denise M. O’Driscoll

  7. Eastern Health Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Denise M. O’Driscoll

  8. Sleep and Circadian Medicine Laboratory, 264 Ferntree Gully Road, Notting Hill, VIC, 3031, Australia

    Caroline J. Beatty

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  1. Caroline J. Beatty
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Contributions

GSH, DMO and BAE: contributed to study conceptualization; JL: contributed to investigation; CJB: contributed to data curation; CJB, SAL and AT: contributed to formal analysis; CJB, SAL, DMO, JL, SAJ, AW, LT, BAE and GSH: contributed to writing—original draft; and GSH and BAE: contributed to supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Caroline J. Beatty.

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Conflict of interest

A/Prof Hamilton and Dr. Joosten have received equipment to support research from ResMed, Philips Respironics and Air Liquide Healthcare. All other authors have no conflicts to disclose and do not have a financial relationship with a commercial entity that has an interest in the subject of this manuscript.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Monash Health Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC ref: 11266A). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Beatty, C.J., Landry, S.A., Lee, J. et al. Dietary intake, eating behavior and physical activity in individuals with and without obstructive sleep apnea. Sleep Biol. Rhythms 19, 85–92 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41105-020-00291-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41105-020-00291-9

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