Deafening snores at night may be the result of consuming salt-ladened food during the day, a clinical trial is in progress to test the theory on patients with a severe sleep disorder, the Daily Mail reported.
Brazilian researchers based at the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre are trying to uncover any sort of connection between salt and obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which people stop breathing for short periods of time while they sleep because of a repeatedly closing throat, causing snoring.
In the trial, which began in October, 54 patients will take a diuretic pill, switch to a low-salt diet or have no treatment. The number of apneas the patients suffer will be monitored and compared.
"The diuretic pill and low-salt diet will both reduce the patient's salt levels," the Daily Mail reported.
Researchers believe the extra salt builds up fluid in the body. The excess fluid shifts to the sleeper's neck while he's lying down, "narrows the upper airways," causing sleep apnea, according to MSN.
The new trial will compare the effects of a low-salt diet to a diuretic pill when treating sleep apnea.
"The idea is that these treatments will reduce the swelling around the throat and thus reduce snoring and apnea. The diuretic will, however, cause more visits to the toilet during the night and thus create another form of sleep disturbance," Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University told the Daily Mail.
Sleep apnea affects an estimated 5 to 10 percent of Americans, and often people are not aware they have it until their partner points it out. The sleep disorder could also lead to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks.
"Untreated severe apnea can take 10 to 15 years off someone's life," Joseph Golish, a sleep medicine expert, told USA Today.
Research on heart failure patients at the University of Toronto found reducing dietary salt has a positive effect on sleep apnea. Researchers said salt intake in sufferers was almost twice that of the other patients.
According to USA Today, doctors have also found that being overweight is a main contributor to sleep apnea, so is high blood pressure, which high salt diets are associated with.
