Snoring may help diagnose sleep disorder

Good morning friends. Some of the people have a sleeping habit like snoring. Snoring may help diagnose sleep disorder.

Researchers have developed a computer programme, which can analyze the snoring pattern of people to help diagnose a specific sleep disorder.

Doctors at University of Queensland and the Princess Alexandra Hospital assessed the snoring of 20 patients with sleep apnoea by first recording it. Similarly, they observed another 66 potential patients.

It was found that the recordings diagnosed the condition successfully in 94 per cent of cases. "An accurate device to diagnose sleep apnoea from recordings of snoring would be extremely helpful," the Telegraph quoted Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert as saying.

"Many patients are told about their snoring by their bed partner, but some can go years not even realizing there is a problem, only that they are constantly exhausted.”This (method) seems to be very accurate for low level sleep apnoea.

"Such a device this could also mean that we are forced to revise upwards the number of people that we think have this condition.”At the moment the only thing many GPs think they know about this illness is that it affects fat, middle-aged men, which suggests many cases among people who do not fit that profile are not being picked up," the expert added.

Sleep apnoea can turn dangerous being linked to increased risk of high blood pressure and heart attack. The results of the study were presented at the Australasian Sleep Association Conference in Melbourne, Australia.

Snoring may stunt kids' growth

Good morning everybody. Time again for our health tips. And I'm sure mothers may be bother with it.

A new study from Yeshiva University has found that snoring and other nighttime breathing problems may delay growth in kids.

Researchers have long suspected these problems - collectively known as sleep disordered breathing (SDB) - contribute to growth delays in children but the studies have still not drawn definitive conclusions.

It is believed to interrupt deep sleep, a period of the sleep cycle when the body typically secrets large amounts of growth hormone.

And children with SDB are thought to produce a lesser amount of growth hormone.
To gain deeper insights, Karen A. Bonuck, Ph.D., associate professor of family and social medicine at Einstein collected and re-analyzed data from 20 well-designed studies, a statistical technique known as a meta-analysis.

These studies involved children with enlarged tonsils and/or adenoids - the principal causes of SDB. All the children had their tonsils/adenoids surgically removed, either to treat symptoms of SDB or recurrent infection, or both. "Our meta-analysis found significant increases in both standardized height and weight following surgery," said Bonuck.

"In other words, while all the children were expected to continue to grow after they underwent surgery, their growth rates were much greater than expected.

Our findings suggest that primary-care providers and specialists should consider the possibility of SDB when they see children with growth failure," Bonuck added.