[Childhood obesity and sleep-related breathing disorders]

Abstract

Introduction: The increasing prevalence of childhood obesity leads to an increase risk of sleep-disordered breathing and may exacerbate their comorbidities.

Purpose: To assess the rate of obesity in children with sleep-disordered breathing and to study the possible clinical and epidemiological differences between children with and without overweight in a private hospital in the Mediterranean area.

Materials and methods: We prospectively studied 340 children between 2 and 10 years. There were 170 children with sleep-disordered breathing (study group) and 170 healthy children (control group). In the problem group, the apnea-hypopnea index was around 7.61 ± 6.3.

Results: The comparison of the percentage of cases with a BMI percentile ≥85 (overweight) between problem and control groups (44: 25.9% vs 34: 20%) or with a BMI ≥95 (obesity) (30: 17.6% vs 20: 11.8%) showed no statistically-significant differences. In addition, the comparison of clinical and epidemiological variables in the problem group, cases with (44/170: 25.9%) and without (126/170: 74.1%) overweight, did not show significant differences in any of the parameters analysed.

Conclusion: In the population studied, it does not appear that the group of children with sleep breathing disorders presents higher rates of obesity, nor does obesity influence its presentation clinically. These results had probably been influenced by the characteristics of the studied population and therefore should not be an obstacle for being attentive to the possible association of respiratory disease to obesity and its negative consequences.