1. Although obesity is one of the important risk factors for OSA, the mechanism behind its causality is not well understood.
2. In obese patients with OSA, weight loss should never be recommended as the sole treatment of OSA, but rather should be used in conjunction with other treatments such as CPAP or Oral Appliance Therapy.
3. Weight loss strategies consist of surgical, pharmacologic, and lifestyle (including caloric restriction, behavioral therapy, and exercise) treatments.
4. A person who gains 5% of body weight would be expected to increase his/her AHI by 15% compared with an individual whose weight remains stable.
5. Data from the Wisconsin Cohort Study has shown that a 10% reduction in weight is estimated to produce a 26% decrease in the AHI.
6. The difficulty in relying on weight loss for primary therapy in OSA is that many patients regain the weight and then their OSA worsens again.
7. Despite the negative and untoward outcomes associated with obesity, achieving weight loss may be quite challenging.