Snoring can be harmful, 24 million Italians with a health problem
Snoring is not just annoying: for 54% of the Italian population between 15 and 74 years old, over 24 million people, it is a health problem that can also be serious. It is not a trivial issue and addressing it helps prevent even serious diseases. To study the dynamics of snoring, the signals that the body sends and the consequences on the various organs, a medical discipline was born: roncology, the study of 'snoring', in medical terms 'roncopathy'. With this in mind, the Italian Academy of Roncology (Air) was created, presented at the Auxologico San Luca hospital in Milan, where the new discipline aligns itself with sleep medicine.
Studying Snoring"Studying snoring and, above all, identifying it in advance allows us to make an early diagnosis of a possible sleep apnea problem", explains Carolina Lombardi , director of the Sleep Medicine Center at Auxologico.
Fabrizio Salamanca , president of Air, recalls that "snoring with all its consequences began to be the subject of scientific study in the 1970s in Italy. "Unfortunately, for many years it was still little recognized in the medical field, also due to the lack of technologies that allowed for a precise diagnosis. In recent years, however, it is one of the most studied medical topics in the world, with increasingly numerous scientific works with new discoveries that allow for an ever deeper understanding. It is a multidisciplinary disorder, that is, it involves various medical and non-medical disciplines", explains the expert.
“The Academy is a scientific association, non-profit, and was created to provide a common home for all those who deal with snoring, to promote the sharing of knowledge, to organize and sponsor national and international scientific events, theoretical and practical, and always updated with the most recent and innovative therapies", explains Salamanca. As for epidemiology, Salamanca continues, "we can refer to 2 important and complete studies from 2019, one international and the other national.
The first, published in 'Lancet Resiratory Medicine' , explains that in the world 936 million (almost 1 billion) people between 30 and 69 years old suffer from apneic snoring and, of these, 456 million suffer from severe apneas. And it also says that of these patients only 3% go to the doctor for this problem and only 50% of these find a competent doctor who knows how to make the diagnosis. The Italian research by Patrizio Armeni of Cergas Sda Bocconi, also from 2019, says that 54% of the Italian adult population (15-74 years old) suffers from apneic snoring (over 24 million) and 65% are male.
The cost of the pathology for Italy, the experts of the Academy say, is about 31 billion euros per year between direct and indirect health costs. Among the disorders linked to snoring there is also obstructive sleep apnea (OSAS). This is a problem that can be very serious and that occurs when breathing is repeatedly interrupted during sleep. The situation must be treated when the number of apneas (of at least 10 seconds) is more than 5. The symptom that should not be overlooked, even if the apneas are scarce, is daytime sleepiness. And this condition is said to be the cause of 22% of road accidents.
“With regard to the disorders related to this problem – adds the Air president – , for example, there may be an increase in blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmias, daytime sleepiness, cognitive disorders. There may be frequent memory problems”.
“Snoring – concludes Salamanca – is a disorder that affects only the human species, because only humans in their evolution have lost their ‘muzzle’ and developed the anatomical feature called ‘collapsible oropharynx’: a combination that often gives rise, during sleep, to oropharyngeal collapse and posterior tongue droop, which are the most frequent sites of origin of snoring and obstructive apneas".
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