Almost one billion people aged 30-69 have obstructive sleep apnoea across the globe, researchers say – a figure 10 times higher than previous estimates.

Researchers, including Australia’s Professor Peter Eastwood, reviewed the results of 17 studies, covering 16 countries and 15,000 people, and matched them to countries without data based on international statistics for BMI, sex, race and age, plus geographical proximity.

They concluded that 936 million people had mild to severe obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), defined as an apnoea-hypopnoea index (AHI) of five or more events per hour.

And 426 million of these individuals would have moderate to severe OSA, defined as an AHI of 15 or more events per hour, they wrote in Lancet Respiratory Medicine.