Effect of interval aerobic exercise on apnea/hypopnea index (AHI), BMI and life quality in middle aged men with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome

Obstructive sleep Apnea (OSA) is one of the most important medical events in recent decades and is related to sedentary, obesity, hypertension and diabetes. The main aim of this research is studying the effect of eight weeks interval aerobic exercise on AHI, BMI and life quality of middle-aged men who are affected by OSA.

In this quasi-experimental research, 24 participants 47.5 ± 4.4 aged, AHI= 41.2 ± 21.4 and BMI= 27.5 ± 1.8 were studied in two groups of training and controlling randomly. The training group started the selected interval aerobic exercise program with the intensity of 65% up to 70% MHR in first week and finished it with the intensity of 80% up to 85% MHR. The controlling group had no exercise program. AHI was measured with polysomnography set, BMI was measured with Inbody 270 set and quality of life was measured with SF-36 questionnaire. For studying the data of independent t test in SPSS software, version 26 was used.

In evaluating mean difference for AHI, p= 0.31 was calculated so that there was no meaningful change. For BMI, p= 0.24 was calculated so that there was no meaningful change, and for the quality of life p=0.0001 was calculated so that there was a meaningful difference between those studied groups.

This research determined that doing eight weeks of interval aerobic exercise has no effect on making a meaningful change in AHI and BMI but a meaningful improvement was seen in the quality of lives of patients.