Rising obesity is a key factor in the soaring cases of sleep apnoea in the UK, experts have said, as new data shows cases have tripled in the last decade.
Analysis of NHS data in England and Wales between 2014 and 2024 revealed a sharp rise in diagnosed cases of the condition.
The figures showed there were 114,640 cases reported across NHS trusts in 2014. But by 2024, this had risen to 360,070, marking a 214 per cent increase in diagnoses over the last decade.
The data, obtained by The Odd Company through Freedom of Information requests, showed cases rose on average by 13.69 per cent year-on-year, with over 2 million cases diagnosed overall in the period.
Sleep apnoea is a sleep disorder that causes repeated breathing interruptions during sleep.
As well as resulting in ongoing tiredness, if left untreated, it can potentially cause various health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes and depression.
Dr David Garley, director of The Better Sleep Clinic, explained: “It’s a disorder of the upper airway where it repeatedly closes as you sleep.
“Your upper airway is held open by muscles, so as you fall asleep your airway naturally narrows in on itself. The first thing you find is the airflow gets turbulent, so that makes the soft structures vibrate, which is snoring.
“But with sleep apnoea, it actually closes and you have this period of not breathing. Your body will only tolerate this for a period of time before it actually has to wake you up and pull you back from the deep state of sleep, into a shallow state or completely awake. So you get really fragmented, poor quality sleep.”
He said one of the main factors in sleep apnoea is obesity, which is also on the rise in the UK.
“Anyone can get sleep apnoea, but the biggest risk factors are age and carrying extra weight – and both of these factors are increasing in the UK and that’s why obstructive sleep apnoea is on the increase,” he told The Independent.
“What you’re looking at is the collapsibility of the upper airway, so this happens because the muscles relax as you fall asleep. If you’ve got more weight around your neck, it just pushes in a bit more.
“Menopause is another risk factor. That’s often to do with the redistribution of weight in the body as you go through that transition, so you tend to get a bit more around that area which pushes in.”
He added that 85 per cent of people who have sleep apnoea are undiagnosed due to the difficulties in knowing whether they are displaying symptoms.
Some of the rise in diagnoses could also be thanks to an increase in awareness of the condition.
He said: “Hopefully some of it is because we’re eating into that 85 per cent, but inevitably it’s because more people will have sleep apnoea.
“Some of the increase is because of awareness, and others is because undeniably there are more old people and obesity is a bigger issue.”
According to the NHS, sleep apnoea can sometimes be treated by making lifestyle changes like losing weight, giving up smoking and reducing alcohol consumption.
But many people need to use a device called a CPAP machine, which gently pumps air into a mask worn over the mouth or nose during sleep.
The government is planning a wave of new measures to reduce levels of obesity, after the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities estimated that more than a quarter of the English population is now obese. Rates of obesity have doubled since the 1990s, costing the NHS an estimated £11 billion a year, which is three times the annual budget for the ambulance services.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has warned that, unless the “rising tide of cost and demand” is curbed, the NHS “risks becoming unsustainable”.
Ministers are also planning regulations for restaurants to monitor diners’ calorie intake and drive it down further.
