Undisturbed sleep can reduce serious health risks

People who don’t snore as they lay in their white, wooden, or leather beds have a lower risk of suffering from health problems including cancer, a study has indicated. While those whose sleep is disturbed by their own interrupted breathing are up to 4.8 times more likely to be affected by cancer, those who are less affected by breathing disorders experienced a decreased risk in correlation to their ease of breathing as they sleep. Snoring is one symptom of a range of disorders, known as sleep disordered breathing (SDB) that cause this increased risk. The most common of these disorders is sleep apnoea. These new findings from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US have highlighted the need to treat these night time breathing disorders, so people can not only get a more refreshing sleep, but can avoid the higher risk of health problems. Dr Javier Nieto from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health was the study's leader. He explained that the link between clear breathing during sleep and a reduced risk of cancer may be due to a good supply of oxygen discouraging a tumour from thriving. He said: "The consistency of the evidence from the animal experiments and this new epidemiologic evidence in humans is highly compelling. In vitro (laboratory) and animal studies suggest that intermittent hypoxia promotes angiogenesis and tumour growth, which can explain these observations."