Health Professionals

  • Up to 58% of patients with type 2 diabetes, also suffer from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)6
  • OSA is the most common type of Sleep Disordered Breathing (SDB)
  • The majority of these patients are unaware they have OSA

 

 

Why treat patients with OSA and type 2 diabetes?

Extensive research indicates that effective treatment of OSA in people suffering from type 2 diabetes can result in significant:

  • Improvements in insulin sensitivity7
  • Reduction in after-meal blood glucose level8
  • Reduction in mean arterial blood pressure9

 

OSA Symptoms

 

This checklist can help identify whether your patients are presenting OSA symptoms :

  • Has their partner noticed that they snore, gasp or stop breathing during sleep?
  • Do they often wake up feeling unrefreshed?
  • Do they sometimes feel excessively sleepy during the day?
  • Do they find it difficult to concentrate?
  • Do they have hypertension?
  • Do they have type 2 diabetes

 

 

Next steps

  1. Test your type 2 diabetic patients for OSA
  2. Initiate treatment or refer to a Sleep Specialist for further investigation
IDF endorsement

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has recognised the benefits of more aggressively diagnosing and treating these two associated patient groups.

 

They recently recommended that all type 2 diabetic patients be screened for OSA, indicating their serious concern for the longer term health risks associated with this correlation between the two chronic disease states.

 

Read the press release

 

Quick Sleep Test

Test your patients for OSA with a quick sleep test

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