Prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing in women: Effects of gender

The prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing has not been well studied in women, especially in terms of the effects of age, body mass index (BMI), and menopause. We evaluated this question using a two-phase random sample from the general population. In Phase I, 12,219 women and 4,364 men ranging in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine 2001-03, Vol.163 (3), p.608-613
Main Authors: BIXLER, Edward O, VGONTZAS, Alexandros N, LIN, Hung-Mo, TEN HAVE, Thomas, REIN, Jennifer, VELA-BUENO, Antonio, KALES, Anthony
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Biological and medical sciences
Body Mass Index
Hormone Replacement Therapy
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Menopause
Middle Aged
Multivariate Analysis
Pneumology
Prevalence
Respiratory system : syndromes and miscellaneous diseases
Sex Factors
Sleep Apnea Syndromes - epidemiology
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Summary:The prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing has not been well studied in women, especially in terms of the effects of age, body mass index (BMI), and menopause. We evaluated this question using a two-phase random sample from the general population. In Phase I, 12,219 women and 4,364 men ranging in age from 20 to 100 yr were interviewed; and in Phase II, 1,000 women and 741 men of the Phase I subjects were selected for one night of sleep laboratory evaluation. The results of our study indicated that, for clinically defined sleep apnea (apnea/hypopnea index > or = 10 and daytime symptoms), men had a prevalence of 3.9% and women 1.2%, resulting in an overall ratio of sleep apnea for men to women of 3.3:1 (p = 0.0006). The prevalence of sleep apnea was quite low in premenopausal women (0.6%) as well as postmenopausal women with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) (0.5%). Further, in these women the presence of sleep apnea appeared to be associated exclusively with obesity (BMI > or = 32.3 kg/m2). Postmenopausal women without HRT had a prevalence of sleep apnea that was significantly higher than the prevalence in premenopausal women with HRT (2.7 versus 0.6%, p = 0.02) and was more similar to the prevalence in men (3.9%), although it remained significantly less when controlling for age and BMI (p = 0.001). These data combined indicate that menopause is a significant risk factor for sleep apnea in women and that hormone replacement appears to be associated with reduced risk.
ISSN:1073-449X
1535-4970
DOI:10.1164/ajrccm.163.3.9911064