Treatment for people who suffer from a chronic form of snoring can dramatically cut their risk of serious heart problems, a medical conference has heard. Individuals with a condition called obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome stop breathing for at least 10 seconds, five times an hour or more.
In addition to causing snoring when the breathing suddenly resumes, the person also suffers chronic fatigue from poor sleep and, previous research has shown shown, stress on the cardiovascular system.
In a study for presentation at the European Respiratory Society's annual congress, a team from Germany's University of Bochum monitored 638 apnoea sufferers over an average seven-year period.
Of these, 499 were under treatment and 139 refused treatment. Those on treatment enjoyed a nearly two-thirds reduction in the risk of heaving a heart attack, stroke or acute cardiac pain that require vascular surgery.
The standard treatment for sleep apnoea is called continuous positive airway pressure -- a nose and mouth mask that delivers air continuously, thus keeping the airways open.
Before the mask was invented, a common course of action was a surgical operation called tracheostomy, or creating a temporary opening in the windpipe.
"Treating sleep apnoea reduces the cardiovascular risk by 64 percent," said lead researcher Nikolaus Buchner. "And that's regardless of the degree of apnoea, the subject's age or any history of cardiovascular problems."
