Triglyceride-glucose index and obstructive sleep apnea: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has a bidirectional association with metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance (IR). The triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index could be a simply calculated marker of IR in OSA. However, its clinical application appears still limited. Hence, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to respond to this question by analyzing all the existing studies showing an association between OSA and the TyG index. Four online databases, including PubMed, Scopus, the Web of Science, and Embase were searched for studies evaluating the TyG index in OSA. After screening and data extraction, a random-effect meta-analysis was performed to compare the TyG index in OSA patients vs. healthy controls by calculating standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI) and pooling the area under the curves (AUCs) for diagnosis of OSA based on this index. Ten studies involving 16,726 individuals were included in the current systematic review. Meta-analysis indicated that there was a significantly higher TyG index in patients with OSA, compared with the healthy controls (SMD 0.856, 95% CI 0.579 to 1.132, P