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If you snore loudly, most likely you have underlying sleep apnea\u2014a potentially life-threatening condition.<\/p>\nIf you snore loudly, most likely you have underlying sleep apnea\u2014a potentially life-threatening condition.<\/p>\n
For a long time, being overweight and obese has been considered the #1 cause of sleep apnea. And the solution is therefore to lose weight. Makes sense, right?<\/p>\n
A new study published in ERJ Open Research<\/em> turns this traditional wisdom on its head. As it reveals how a simple diet change (that has nothing to do with weightless) may drastically improve sleep apnea. <\/p>\n The study used information from 14,210 people who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They all shared their typical food intake via a questionnaire. <\/p>\n Based on their diets, participants were put into three groups:<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n - those who ate a lot of healthy plant foods like fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, and legumes.<\/p>\n - those who ate a lot of animal foods like meat, eggs, fish, and dairy<\/p>\n - those who ate lots of unhealthy plant foods like refined grains, potatoes, sugar-sweetened drinks, sweets, desserts, and salty foods.<\/p>\n<\/ul>\n The researchers then checked who was more likely to have sleep apnea.<\/p>\n This is what they discovered:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Those who ate healthy plant-based foods had a 19% lower chance of having sleep apnea than those who didn’t eat much of them.<\/p>\n 2. Those who ate a lot of unhealthy plant foods had a 22% higher chance of having sleep apnea.<\/p>\n 3. Vegetarians, meaning those who consumed dairy and eggs but not meat, had a 16% lower risk.<\/p>\n 4. Men could get away with more unhealthy plant food than women could, with their respective risks for sleep apnea from unhealthy plant-based diets increasing by 13 and 42%.<\/p>\n 5. Women benefited more from healthy plant foods than men did, with their respective risks for sleep apnea declining by 23 and 10% while on a healthy plant-based diet.\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n The researchers guessed that the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in healthy plant-based foods reduced inflammation, which may have enabled them to prevent sleep apnea. <\/p>\n This study is important because it shows that not just losing weight, but also eating better quality foods, can help with this sleep breathing disorder. <\/p>\n\n
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