Relationships between polysomnographic variables, parameters of glucose metabolism, and serum androgens in obese adolescents with polycystic ovarian syndrome

Summary The aim of this study was to compare polysomnographic variables of obese adolescents with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) to those of healthy controls and to analyse whether polysomnographic variables correlate to parameters of body weight/body composition, to serum androgens and to parameters of glucose metabolism. Thirty‐one obese adolescents with PCOS (15.0 years ± 1.0, body mass index 32.7 kg per m2 ± 6.2) and 19 healthy obese adolescents without PCOS (15.2 years ± 1.1, body mass index 32.4 kg per m2 ± 4.0) underwent polysomnography to compare apnoea index, hypopnoea index, apnoea–hypopnoea index, the absolute number of obstructive apnoeas, percentage sleep Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4 of non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, percentage of REM sleep, TIB, total sleep time (TST), sleep‐onset latency, total wake time (TWT), wakefulness after sleep onset (WASO) and sleep efficiency. Furthermore, we correlated polysomnographic variables to parameters of body weight/body composition, to serum androgens and to parameters of glucose metabolism. We found no differences between the two groups concerning the respiratory indices, percentage sleep Stages 2, 3 and 4 of NREM sleep, TIB and sleep‐onset latency. The girls with PCOS differed significantly from the controls regarding TST, WASO, TWT, sleep efficiency, percentage Stage 1 of NREM sleep and percentage of REM sleep. We found a weak significant correlation between insulin resistance and apnoea index and between insulin resistance and apnoea–hypopnoea index. Concerning the respiratory variables, adolescents with PCOS do not seem to differ from healthy controls; however, there seem to be differences concerning sleep architecture.