New research into the impact of smoking on snoring has just been published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine which found that after calculating for other snoring risk factors, such as obesity, gender and age, current smoking was responsible for a 17% increase in snoring, and passive smoking a 2.2% increase. Obesity increased the risk of snoring by 4.3%.

Researchers have three theories on why cigarette smoke increases the risk of snoring:

1. Smoke irritates, inflames and narrows the upper airways.
2. Nicotine withdrawal during sleep may cause physiological changes
3. Smoke may cause toxic lesions on the nerves in the muscles of the upper airways.

The results came from a postal questionnaire of more than 15000 randomly selected people aged between 25 - 54. There may be problems with the accuracy of self-reporting snoring patterns.

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• Original research: Abstract, Full paper, Email the researchers
• Smoking Spurs Snoring

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 2nd, 2004 at 11:25 am and is filed under Smoking, Snoring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.