Association between Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Dose-Response Meta-Analysis

Aim/Introduction. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep-related breathing disorder that is characterized by repeated episodes of upper airway occlusion during sleep. The patients with OSA suffered from comprehensive oxidative stress in all systems. OSA might induce type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a kind of metabolism disorder. In this passage, we are exploring the dose-response relationship between OSA and T2DM. Materials and Methods. We screened four databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochran Library, and CNKI) for the observational studies about the OSA and T2DM. Studies were collected from database establishment to October 2020. We performed a traditional subgroup meta-analysis. What is more, linear and spline dose-response models were applied to assess the association between apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), an indicator to evaluate the severity of OSA, and the risk of T2DM. Review Manager, version 5.3, software and Stata 16.0 were used for the analysis. Result. Seven observational studies were included in the research. We excluded a study in the conventional meta-analysis. In the subgroup analysis, mild-dose AHI increased the risk of T2DM (odds ratio = 1.23, 95% confidence interval = 1.06–1.41, <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"> <a:mi>P</a:mi> </a:math> < 0.05). Moderate-dose AHI increased the risk of T2DM with a higher odds ratio (OR = 1.35, 95% CI = 1.13–1.61, <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2"> <c:mi>P</c:mi> </c:math> < 0.05). Moderate-to-severe-dose AHI increased the risk of T2DM with a higher odds ratio (OR = 2.14, 95% CI = 1.72–2.67, <e:math xmlns:e="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M3"> <e:mi>P</e:mi> </e:math> < 0.05). Severe-dose AHI increased the risk of T2DM with a higher odds ratio (OR = 2.19 95% CI = 1.30–3.68, <g:math xmlns:g="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M4"> <g:mi>P</g:mi> </g:math> < 0.05). Furthermore, the spline and linear dose-response meta-analysis results revealed that the risk of T2DM increased with increasing AHI values. Conclusion. Through the dose-response meta-analysis, we found a potential dose-response relationship existed between the severity of OSA and the risk of T2DM. This relationship in our passage should be considered in the prevention of T2DM in the future.