ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Clinical Diabetes
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1643826
This article is part of the Research TopicNovel technologies in the diagnosis and management of sleep-disordered breathing: Volume IIIView all 13 articles
The Association Between Obstructive Sleep Apnoea and Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy in Subjects with Type 2 Diabetes OSA and DPN
Provisionally accepted
- 1First Hospital of Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, China
- 2Qinhuangdao Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Qinhuangdao, China
- 3Qingdao Women and Children's Hospital, Qingdao, China
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Objective: This study aimed to examine the association between obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted involving 228 T2DM subjects at The First Hospital of Qinhuangdao. OSA was assessed using polysomnography. DPN was diagnosed based on clinical signs, symptoms and electromyography findings. Small fibre neuropathy was additionally assessed through corneal confocal microscopy. Among these T2DM subjects, 124 (54.4%) had DPN. The prevalence of OSA was 67.5% (mild OSA 30.7%, moderate-to-severe OSA 36.8%). DPN prevalence rates were 40.5%, 52.9% and 67.9% in subjects without OSA, with mild OSA, and with moderate-to-severe OSA respectively. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that moderate-to-severe OSA was independently associated with DPN in T2DM subjects (AOR=2.176, 95%CI:1.050-4.511, p=0.037). Multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated that apnea hypopnea index (AHI) was independently associated with corneal nerve fiber length (CNFL)(coefficient=-0.032, p=0.049, R 2 =0.029) and CNFT (coefficient=0.023, p<0.001, R 2 =0.171) in T2DM subjects.Conclusion: T2DM subjects with OSA demonstrate significantly higher odds of DPN.Furthermore, OSA shows a significant correlation with small fibre damage in T2DM subjects.
Keywords: obstructive sleep apnea, Diabetic peripheral neuropathy, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, apnea-hypopnea index, Corneal nerve fiber
Received: 09 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lu, Cheng, Qian, An, Yin, Hou, Liu, Lu, Ma and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rui Wang, First Hospital of Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, China
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