Does Weight Loss Surgery Help Sleep Apnoea Over the Long Term?
A large study followed more than 4,000 people for 20 years and found that bariatric surgery, also called weight loss surgery, was linked to lasting improvements in obstructive sleep apnoea compared with standard obesity care. Those improvements held up both for people who already had sleep apnoea and for those who did not.
Who Was Studied and How the Research Was Done
The Swedish Obese Subjects study included 4,047 people, split into two groups: 2,010 who had bariatric surgery and 2,037 who received usual obesity care. Researchers checked sleep apnoea status using questionnaires at multiple points over 20 years. This was a non-randomised study, meaning participants were not randomly assigned to each group, which can affect how the results should be interpreted.
What the Researchers Found Over Two Decades
Among people who already had obstructive sleep apnoea, those who had surgery showed roughly 32 percentage points lower prevalence of the condition on average across the 20 years compared with the usual care group. Among those who did not have sleep apnoea at the start, surgery was linked to about 6 percentage points fewer new cases developing over time. Both findings were statistically significant, meaning they were unlikely to be due to chance.
What This Study Does and Does Not Tell Us
The results suggest that the benefits of weight loss surgery for sleep apnoea can extend well beyond the first few years after the procedure. The study was conducted in Sweden, so results may not apply equally in all settings, and outcomes will vary from person to person. Longer follow up data from other populations would help strengthen these findings further.
About this research: Obstructive Sleep Apnea Following Bariatric Surgery: 20 Year Outcomes From the Swedish Obese Subjects Study. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 2026. Read the study summary
More about the procedures covered in this research is on our bariatric surgery page. If you are considering your options, call us on (03) 9760 2777 or request an appointment through our website.