Continuous positive airway pressure increases pulsatile growth hormone secretion and circulating insulin-like growth factor-1 in a time-dependent manner in men with obstructive sleep apnea: a randomized sham-controlled study

What Was Tested

Researchers studied IGF-1 LR3 in the context of sleep apnea (obstructive) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To assess the time-dependent effect of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), on insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), IGF binding proteins (IGFBPs) and pulsatile growth hormone (GH) secretion.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were middle-aged adults and older adults, men only.

Sixty-five middle-aged men with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and parallel-group study.

Because people in this IGF-1 LR3 study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on IGF-1 LR3, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

The timeline in the abstract includes 12 weeks.

A randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, parallel group study.

Active (n = 34) or sham (n = 31) CPAP for 12 weeks, followed by 12 weeks of active CPAP (n = 65).

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Australia, Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, Human Growth Hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 1, Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3, Insulin-Like Growth Factor I and Sleep Apnea, Obstructive.

The authors tagged it with the keywords IGF binding protein, insulin-like growth factor 1, obstructive sleep apnea and pulsatility.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and parallel-group study of IGF-1 LR3 in people with sleep apnea (obstructive) over 12 weeks.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 10 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2014 (Sleep), a journal based in United States.

More context: the IGF-1 LR3 compound page, Sleep apnea (obstructive) research.