Snoring in adults: causes and gender characteristics

Pre­vi­ous­ly, it was believed that snor­ing is the pre­rog­a­tive of men, but in the last 50 years, in per­cent­age terms, posi­tions are grad­u­al­ly lev­el­ing off, although it is still far from “equal­i­ty”. Stud­ies have shown that women, although less often, can still snore.

Is snoring dangerous for women?

Men are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence this con­di­tion, and it is caused by a num­ber of fac­tors. More fre­quent drink­ing and overeat­ing before bed affect its occur­rence. But women also have their own rea­sons for snor­ing. The main prob­lem is con­sid­ered to be inac­cu­rate and incom­plete diag­no­sis of this symp­tom, although it can­not be called a dis­ease, the pres­ence of sys­tem­at­ic snor­ing indi­cates seri­ous dis­or­ders in the body. By ignor­ing these symp­toms, women just “bury their heads in the sand” with­out doing any research, let alone treat­ment.

This con­di­tion affects health, as it may cause:

• headache;
• depres­sion;
• insom­nia;
• low libido;
• decrease in per­for­mance.

In women, snor­ing is much qui­eter than in men and occurs more often dur­ing menopause or after. The caus­es of snor­ing in women who have not suf­fered from it before are sim­i­lar to those that occur in the strong half of human­i­ty, but there are some nuances.

The ill-fat­ed kilo­grams and here have their effect on the body. Dur­ing menopause, a woman gains weight, how­ev­er, fat is dis­trib­uted dif­fer­ent­ly than in men. From obe­si­ty, the low­er part of the res­pi­ra­to­ry tract nar­rows, breath­ing is dis­turbed. It is worth not­ing that exces­sive obe­si­ty can pro­voke sleep apnea, breath­ing becomes heavy, sleep is rest­less.

Hor­mones affect the res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem by pro­tect­ing the mus­cles that keep the upper air­ways in good con­di­tion. With hor­mone replace­ment ther­a­py, side effects are pos­si­ble, and they try not to use them to elim­i­nate snor­ing dur­ing menopause.

Thy­roid dis­or­ders and snor­ing often com­ple­ment each oth­er, caus­ing weak­ness, fatigue, drowsi­ness, and headaches.

Dia­betes caus­es this dis­or­der, regard­less of age and how much a woman weighs. Inter­rupt­ed breath­ing leads to a lack of oxy­gen dur­ing sleep, insulin lev­els rise.

Causes of snoring in men

About half of men suf­fer from snor­ing. This is due to the fact that fat is deposit­ed in the neck, and this leads to a nar­row­ing of the air­ways. Even a few extra pounds can affect the res­pi­ra­to­ry process, and in the supine posi­tion, the risk of hear­ing night trills increas­es.

In men, the length of the vocal cords and the phar­ynx are large, and this leads to the fact that the incor­rect posi­tion of the tongue caus­es snor­ing. If the low­er jaw is more pro­trud­ing, then this can also affect the fact that a per­son will snore.

The lifestyle of the stronger sex is more often than that of women asso­ci­at­ed with alco­hol, smok­ing, injuries — all these fac­tors pro­voke and cause snor­ing. Smok­ing caus­es swelling of the nasal mucosa, alco­hol leads to mus­cle relax­ation, which even­tu­al­ly leads to snor­ing. Nose injuries received in a fight, a devi­at­ed sep­tum, are snor­ing pro­vok­ing fac­tors, as these are addi­tion­al bar­ri­ers to the out­flow of air.

There is a small per­cent­age of men whose caus­es of snor­ing are asso­ci­at­ed with anatom­i­cal fea­tures, as well as the pres­ence of polyps, ade­noids. But most­ly patients with snor­ing are mid­dle-aged peo­ple with excess weight. It is extra pounds that are con­sid­ered a dan­ger­ous fac­tor, since inter­mit­tent breath­ing dis­rupts sleep, a per­son does not get enough sleep. Often such a symp­tom as snor­ing occurs in peo­ple with dis­or­ders in the work of the heart; accord­ing to sta­tis­tics, it is they who die more often from a heart attack and stroke. That’s why it’s so impor­tant to let your doc­tor know if you’re snor­ing reg­u­lar­ly.

By deter­min­ing whether snor­ing is with­in the nor­mal range or not, the doc­tor will be able to start treat­ment at an ear­ly stage.

Sleep apnea: symptoms

If a per­son reg­u­lar­ly devel­ops lethar­gy and drowsi­ness dur­ing the day, then this is one of the signs that com­pli­cat­ed snor­ing both­ers him. Sleep becomes inter­mit­tent, oxy­gen star­va­tion occurs, the night rest reg­i­men is dis­turbed, which affects the gen­er­al con­di­tion of the body. There may also be unrea­son­able weight gain, increased sweat­ing at night, high blood pres­sure in the morn­ing, and a per­sis­tent feel­ing of fatigue.

As a rule, peo­ple begin to snore in adult­hood, but in prin­ci­ple they can suf­fer from this unpleas­ant symp­tom at any age. Chil­dren can also snore, and this is due to dis­or­ders in the res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem. This sit­u­a­tion is observed with enlarged ton­sils and ade­noids, there­fore, in the pres­ence of this symp­tom, it is bet­ter to under­go an exam­i­na­tion. The rea­son may be defects in the struc­ture of the skull, or rather, its front part. With reg­u­lar snor­ing, the child devel­ops chron­ic fatigue, aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance drops, and noc­tur­nal enure­sis may occur.

Since it is at night that the hor­mone respon­si­ble for growth is pro­duced, when sleep is inter­rupt­ed, if breath­ing peri­od­i­cal­ly stops, the lev­el of this hor­mone decreas­es. If these symp­toms are ignored, snor­ing can become chron­ic, and this is like­ly to be harm­ful to health and in some cas­es can even be life-threat­en­ing.

Snoring treatment

If he does not both­er con­stant­ly, but is observed only peri­od­i­cal­ly, then a num­ber of rec­om­men­da­tions can be fol­lowed. Lim­it the use of alco­hol and sleep­ing pills, tran­quil­iz­ers. In a dream, pre­fer a posi­tion on your side, and the head of the bed can be raised by 8–10 cen­time­ters. If you are over­weight, then you need to lose weight.

If the efforts made are in vain, then you need to con­tact a spe­cial­ist to exclude dis­eases of the nasophar­ynx. In the pres­ence of a dis­ease, effec­tive treat­ment is pre­scribed.

There are many devices avail­able to help pre­vent snor­ing. In some cas­es, surgery may be per­formed. Today there are many pos­si­bil­i­ties: laser palato­plas­ty, somno­plas­ty, sep­to­plas­ty, ton­sil­lec­to­my. Only a qual­i­fied doc­tor can decide what is nec­es­sary to solve the prob­lem. Only after an accu­rate diag­no­sis, tak­ing into account the patien­t’s com­plaints, can we talk about how effec­tive the manip­u­la­tions will be.