Not only do people wake up tired and groggy, but it can also lead to serious health problems including heart disease, stroke and cognitive decline.
It's most commonly treated by wearing a CPAP machine to bed. But now, there's a new treatment that's recently been approved by the FDA to treat OSA, with no mask required.
Roger Schwalm is not a big fan of his CPAP machine.
"I hate it with a passion. It only lets me sleep really good on most cases maybe three, four hours a night. And then it gets so painful I have to take it off," Schwalm said.
Wearing it can be a struggle.
"I leave my mouth open at night and as soon as I try to close it a little bit, that breaks the seal on it. And the bad thing is it whistles right into the ears and wakes you right up," he said.
Still, wearing the noisy mask hooked up to a bulky hose is better than no sleep at all. Now, there may be another option for him. It's a drug called tirzepatide, also known as Mounjaro or Zepbound.
It's FDA approved to manage diabetes and obesity. Now, UC San Diego researchers have gotten it approved as the first effective drug therapy for sleep apnea.
"Systolic blood pressure got better. High sensitivity c-reactive protein, which is a marker of cardiovascular risk, got better. The sleep apnea specific hypoxic burden, which is a marker of cardiovascular risk, also improved," explained Dr. Atul Malhotra, the research chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at UC San Diego.
In the study, patients also lost an average of 20% of their body weight. Now researchers want to know if it helps with sleep apnea because of the weight loss, or does it change brain function, or is it a combination of many things?
"People also reduce alcohol intake, tobacco intake goes down, gambling behaviors can change as well. So, there are quite a few changes that can occur with these medications that may be beneficial," Malhotra said.
Researchers are working on more clinical trials to examine the long-term side effects.
Doctors already know it can cause short term nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
And if taken for weight loss, the drug will likely be taken for life. But Malhotra says research is still out on whether the same goes for treating sleep apnea.