Daily HealthBeat Tip

Snoring young women

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Snoring has been thought of primarily as a man’s problem. But it can be a woman’s, too.

Maninder Kalra of the University of Cincinnati looked at young women in a database of mothers. He found that having asthma doubled the chance that they’d snore.

This is no minor thing, because snoring is a leading symptom of sleep apnea. That’s when tissues in the throat temporarily collapse and make it hard to breathe. It can lead to problems from restless sleep to, possibly, heart conditions.

Kalra says the problems can be headed off:

"For our overweight patients, I recommend weight loss, as it has been shown to reduce the severity of sleep apnea." (six seconds)

So does allergy treatment and quitting smoking.

His study in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: October 31, 2006

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