With obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) emerging as a significant global health concern, a comprehensive review and meta-analysis examining OSA prevalence in Indian adults has stated that about 104 million (10.4 crore) working-age Indians could be affected by the sleep disorder. The study, published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews, said OSA is a common sleep disorder associated with “considerable morbidity”.

Millions of Indians at Risk of Obstructive Sleep Apnea

“However, there is an underrepresentation of data from India and other developing countries in global reviews of OSA prevalence. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the prevalence of OSA in India,” said the team of researchers led by Dr. Anant Mohan, professor and head of pulmonology department at AIIMS.Other research team members from AIIMS New Delhi were Tejas Menon Suri, Tamoghna Ghosh, Saurabh Mittal, Vijay Hadda and Karan Madan.

The team searched MEDLINE, Embase, and Scopus databases for articles that reported the prevalence of OSA in the general Indian adult population using sleep studies.Eight studies were included, comprising 11,009 subjects with mean age ranging from 35.5 to 47.8 years and meta-analysis was performed using the random-effects model.

“This represents a major public health problem in India with important implications for the global burden of the disease,” the authors noted. Considered a common yet serious medical condition, sleep apnea causes someone to stop breathing while asleep, which can result in disruptions in oxygen supply, lower sleep quality, and other health complications such as hypertension, cardiac disorder, stroke or cognitive disorder.