Snoring Problems Helps Burn Calories Fast

Snoring problems during sleep - once thought as just a noisy disruption to your sleeping partner (perhaps the entire household) is now understood to be so much more.

When we sleep, turbulent airflow moves through the tissues of the nose and throat which may narrow during sleep - resulting in that awful noise.

And while anyone can snore, estimates have 45% of men and 30% of women snoring on a nightly basis. Generally, the more weight you're carrying the more you're likely to snore.

New research appearing in December 2008's issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery supports the idea that those of us who snore actually burn calories fast when at rest during the day compared to those who sleep quietly.

The trouble is that the extra calorie burning doesn't make a dent in the extra pounds that often accompany all the noisy snoring.

Lead study author Dr. Eric J. Kezirian says, "This study examined one of the important ways that obstructive sleep apnea can affect body weight. There are many things we do not understand about the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea and body weight, and this is one."

While obesity and sleep apnea are thought to be closely related, this latest work looked at ways obstructive sleep apnea can affect body weight. Medicine knows that losing weight improves obstructive sleep apnea in anyone who is overweight, but this is one of many ways this condition might be affected by weight.

"People with sleep apnea have a greater chance of being obese, and obese patients have a greater chance of having sleep apnea," said Dr. Jordan Josephson, a specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and author of Sinus Relief Now. Sleep apnea is the number one cause of cardiac events like heart attack and stroke while sleeping.

The cross sectional study, a joint effort by researchers of the University of California, San Francisco and Stanford University, measured the daytime resting energy output of 212 adults, some of who had sleep disordered breathing. The body mass index of the subjects was at a mean value of 28.3, considered at the high end of the overweight range.

The severity of the subject's sleeping disorder was measured by the apnea-hypopnea index, which tells how many times in an hour a subject doesn't breathe or if there is a reduction in air flow that's enough to cause a wake from sleep.

The study found that for every 10 point increase in the index, there was a 27 calorie increase in resting energy expenditure during the day. Unexpected to be sure... subjects are overweight yet seem to have a higher metabolic rate overall.

More work is needed...

A second study, based on interviews with about 1500 workers, found that hay fever and other allergic reactions don't appear to be linked with snoring or sleepiness during the day, unless the nasal passages are obstructed.

This work was conducted at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health located in Kitakyushu, Japan. Subjects in the nasal obstruction groups had higher odds of snoring (and dealing with daytime sleepiness), whether they had allergies or not.

"The present results strongly suggest that nasal obstruction causes sleep-disordered breathing and, thus, daytime sleepiness in individuals without allergic rhinitis as well as in those with allergic rhinitis," the study authors tell us.

If you find you have nasal obstructions, seeking treatment for this condition will vastly improve snoring problems and the quality of your sleep, as well as your waking life.

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