Women: Don’t hide your snoring!
Women are vulnerable to snoring as often and as loudly as men. Snoring is sometimes distressing and can be a symptom of sleep apnoea, which underlies other serious conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
Women tend to under report their snoring habits and underestimate the loudness of their snoring, but a recent clinical sleep study showed that nearly 40% of women had severe or very severe snoring intensity.
In the evaluation, some 2,000 patients – 675 women and 1,238 men – were asked to rate the severity of their snoring and then had the volume of their snoring measured with a digital sound meter when asleep – the snoring intensity was mild at 40-45 decibels, moderate at 45-55 decibels, severe at 55-60 decibels, or very severe at 60 or more decibels. Analysis found that although 28% of women reported to be non-snorers, only an alarming 9% were speaking the truth, versus 6.8% of men who said they didn’t snore when just 3.5% did not.This suggests that doctors look for other signs of sleep apnoea in women rather than a self-report of snoring.
Study coauthor Dr. Nimrod Maimon, a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, has said that despite the unremarkable differences insnoring intensity between genders lesser reports of snoring prevents women from reaching out to sleep clinics for a sleep study, or for a life-saving treatment.
Dr. Ryan Soose, Director of sleep surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, US, has explained that many women are misdiagnosed as they do not present with the same concerns as men. Soose advises physicians to adopt a more personalised approach for both men and women.
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