Snoring is not normal or a sign of tiredness after hard work

Contrary to the thinking of many, loud snoring is not a normal part of sleep, and it also does not suggest that the person snoring is having a deep sleep after a hard day’s work.

Dr David Folorunso, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, made this disclosure in his lecture entitled “Enhancing the Care of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) in Nigeria” at the first scientific conference and general meeting of the Nigerian Sleep Society at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

Folorunso said that snoring is a pointer to obstructive sleep apnoea in the majority of these individuals, although in society, people believe that snoring just shows that somebody is overworked and is having deep sleep.

He declared that a recent community-based cross-sectional Nigerian study put the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea at 30 percent, with men being 1.8 times more at risk of OSA, listing OSA symptoms to include excessive daytime sleepiness, loud snoring, morning headaches, waking during the night and gasping or choking, mood changes and high blood pressure.

According to him, the common risk factors for OSA include obesity, upper airway abnormalities, smoking and alcohol consumption, goitre, neck mass and medications like sedatives.

Dr Folorunso said OSA can lead to dangerous and sometimes life-threatening complications that may include hypertension, heart damage, heart failure, stroke, fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, atrial fibrillation, stress and glaucoma.

“In some patients with secondary hypertension, the cardiologist will want to find out if there was OSA. We have seen individuals that when we take care of OSA, some of them don’t take medications for hypertension again,” he said.

Director of the Sleep Centre and Training Programme at the University of California, San Francisco, Professor Morris DelRosso, in her talk on paediatric sleep disorders, said insomnia, movement disorders and paediatric obstructive sleep apnoea were major sleep disorders in children.

She said what constitutes sleep health or healthy sleep involves a multifactorial construct entity, and the length of sleep varies by age, with younger children requiring more hours of sleep than adolescents.

According to her, more teenagers now obtain less than the recommended eight to nine hours of sleep due to digital media use, which has also been associated with poorer sleep, shorter sleep duration and later bedtimes even in young children.

Prof. DelRosso said it is important to diagnose sleep disorders in children at an early age because sleep is important for brain development.

“From zero to one, there’s 70 percent of the development of the brain and all those brain networks that are going to be growing in the child. So we want to provide the best option for this brain to consolidate memories, to form networks, and to grow in a healthy way with all the utmost potential to reach functionality and cognition,” she declared.

Prof. DelRosso, however, said in children, the symptoms of insomnia, for example, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty maintaining sleep or early awakening, can persist into later ages.

“About 56 percent of insomnia symptoms will persist. Higher wake-sleep problems in childhood predict poor mental status and mental health in adolescence,” she said.

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