Diabetes and Sleep Apnea

Since November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, we felt it was important to share another common companion of diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea. At Cooley Smiles Family Dentistry, we treat quite a number of patients with sleep apnea and provide dental devices and other therapies to help our patients with this common ailment.

As we have learned, obstructive sleep apnea is not a solitary ailment. It has a number of companion diseases (call comorbidities by experts) that vary in frequency among OSA patients. One such comorbidity is type 2 diabetes (the physiological inability to process sugar). In type 2 diabetes, production of insulin continues but the body's ability to utilize it is damaged. According to Naresh Punjabi, MD, type 2 diabetes occurs among 30 - 50 percent of OSA patients while 70 to 80 percent of type 2 diabetes patients also have OSA.

Read more about OSA and Diabetes here, and for more information about sleep apnea, visit our website.