The use of metabolomic and lipidomic strategies for selecting potential 
biomarkers for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) has been little explored. We 
examined adult male patients with OSA (defined by an apnoea-hypopnoea index ≥15 
events/hour), as well as age-, gender-, and fat-composition-matched volunteers 
without OSA. All subjects were subjected to clinical evaluation, sleep 
questionnaires for detecting the risk of OSA (Berlin and NoSAS score), 
metabolomic analysis by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry and 
lipidomic analysis with liquid chromatography followed by detection by MALDI-MS. 
This study included 37 patients with OSA and 16 controls. From the 6 metabolites 
and 22 lipids initially selected, those with the best association with OSA were 
glutamic acid, deoxy sugar and arachidonic acid (metabolites), and 
glycerophosphoethanolamines, sphingomyelin and lyso-phosphocholines (lipids). 
For the questionnaires, the NoSAS score performed best with screening for OSA 
(area under the curve [AUC] = 0.724, p = 0.003). The combination of the NoSAS 
score with metabolites or lipids resulted in an AUC for detecting OSA of 0.911 
and 0.951, respectively. In conclusion, metabolomic and lipidomic strategies 
suggested potential early biomarkers in OSA that could also be helpful in 
screening for this sleep disorder beyond traditional questionnaires.