Abstract
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), present in 5-15% of adults, is strongly associated with the incidence and poor outcome of hypertension, coronary artery disease, arrhythmia, heart failure, and stroke. Treatment of OSA completely reverses its cardiovascular consequences. In this review, we discuss the clinical evidence for the strong association between OSA and cardiovascular disease and present an argument for approaching OSA as a cardiovascular disease. We particularly focus on the causative relationship between OSA and hypertension, and on the increasingly recognized relationship between OSA and heart failure.